Afghanistan,--from the austere and wistful beauty of the grey,
long-backed Norman Abbey rising above the roofs and chimneys of the
little English market-town, to the fierce hectic splendour of Eastern
cities blistering in the implacable sun-glare of the Indian plains. Days
on the Harchester playing fields, days on the river at Oxford, and still
earlier days in the Rectory nursery at home; bringing with them sense of
small bitter sorrows, small glorious triumphs, of laughter and uproarious
fun, of sentimental passages at balls, picnics, garden parties, too, with
charmingly pretty maidens who, in all probability, he would never clap
eyes on again--all these, and impressions even more illusive and
fugitive, playing hide-and-seek among the mazelike convolutions of his
all too active brain.

Then, on a sudden, he started up in bed, aware of external noise and
movement which brought him instantly, almost painfully, broad awake.

For a quite appreciable length of time, while he sat upright in the warm
darkness, Tom failed either to locate the noise which had thus roused
him, or to interpret its meaning. It appeared to him to start at the
river foreshore, pass across the garden, into and through the
ground-floor suite of rooms and corridor which Sir Charles had indicated
as reserved to his particular use.--What on earth could it be? What did
it remind him of?--Why, surely--with a start of incredulous
recognition--the sound of hoofs, though strangely confused and muffled,
such as a mob of scared, over-driven horses might make, floundering
fetlock deep in loose sand.

Alive with curiosity he sprang out of bed, groped his way across to the
window and, putting up the blind, leaned out.