es, among our
Indian up-country stations than Bellary, in the Madras Presidency,
garrisoned in the year 1856 by Her Majesty's 150th Regiment of Infantry.
Let the reader imagine the lines of a fort drawn round a bare
sugar-loaf hill, on which an Indian sun pours its rays for months.
Thoroughly heated by this process of roasting, the arid rock gives out
all night the caloric absorbed during the day, and a three years'
residence in the Fort of Bellary, such as had been passed by the
officers and men of the 150th Regiment, was about equivalent to the same
period in a baker's oven. Years passed, and the English Government had
at last perceived that it was madness to keep troops within the lines of
the old fort when a rich and well-timbered plain lay around it.
Barracks had been built outside; and about three-quarters of a mile
distant from the main gate of Bellary, white bungalows, with their green
verandahs and their well-kept compounds, lay scattered here and there
among the trees, while far away, under the moon's rays, on the night
when our tale opens, a beautiful one in December, stretched the rich
plain, with its piles of rock rising like huge black molehills here and
there, giving welcome shelter to the wild-cats, jackals, and hyenas,
whose cries might be heard from time to time ringing over the plain.
The mess-house of the regiment consisted of the usual large commodious
building, with its many outhouses or godowns, the whole surrounded by a
low wall, and that again protected by a strong hedge of the prickly
pear. A broad verandah ran round the main building, and a flight of
steps led up to the house, where some half-dozen of the officers of the
corps, dressed in white, with nothing to distinguish them except the
forage-cap bearing the number of the regiment, were seated, chatting and
smoking. The day had been very hot, but a pleasant breeze was blowing
over the plain; the click of the billiard-balls was heard from an
adjoining room, whose windows, thrown wide open, cast a stream of light
into the compound, and the hum of voices from the messroom told of the
dinner only just finished, and of the party of seasoned old soldiers who
were even then loth to quit the pleasures of the table and the bottle of
Madeira which had crossed the line four times, and for which particular
wine the 150th had long been justly famous.

"I am half sorry that my leave has arrived, just as we are expecting the
route," said an officer, pu