which he ought to have been given the
Victoria Cross--distinguished gallantry in a fight against
overwhelming curiosity. He picked up his team with his eyes as the
hostess picks up the ladies at the opportune moment, and pausing only
by the Colonel's chair to say, 'This isn't _our_ affair, you know,
Sir,' led them into the veranda and the gardens. Hira Singh was the
last to go, and he looked at Dirkovitch. But Dirkovitch had departed
into a brandy-paradise of his own. His lips moved without sound and he
was studying the coffin on the ceiling.

'White--white all over,' said Basset-Holmer, the Adjutant. 'What a
pernicious renegade he must be! I wonder where he came from?'

The Colonel shook the man gently by the arm, and 'Who are you?' said
he.

There was no answer. The man stared round the mess-room and smiled in
the Colonel's face. Little Mildred, who was always more of a woman
than a man till 'Boot and saddle' was sounded, repeated the question
in a voice that would have drawn confidences from a geyser. The man
only smiled. Dirkovitch at the far end of the table slid gently from
his chair to the floor. No son of Adam in this present imperfect world
can mix the Hussars' champagne with the Hussars' brandy by five and
eight glasses of each without remembering the pit whence he was digged
and descending thither. The band began to play the tune with which the
White Hussars from the date of their formation have concluded all
their functions. They would sooner be disbanded than abandon that
tune; it is a part of their system. The man straightened himself in
his chair and drummed on the table with his fingers.

[Illustration: He found the spring.--P. 91.]

'I don't see why we should entertain lunatics,' said the Colonel.
'Call a guard and send him off to the cells. We'll look into the
business in the morning. Give him a glass of wine first though.'

Little Mildred filled a sherry-glass with the brandy and thrust it
over to the man. He drank, and the tune rose louder, and he
straightened himself yet more. Then he put out his long-taloned hands
to a piece of plate opposite and fingered it lovingly. There was a
mystery connected with that piece of plate, in the shape of a spring
which converted what was a seven-branched candlestick, three springs
on each side and one in the middle, into a sort of wheel-spoke
candelabrum. He found the spring, pressed it, and laughed weakly. He
rose from his chair and inspected a pictur