knows, Wargrave hummed "The Love Song of Har Dyal."

Suddenly he said:

"She's wonderful, Ray, isn't she? Fancy such a glorious woman buried in
this hole and married to a dry old stick like the Resident! Doesn't it
seem a shame?"

The adjutant mumbled an incoherent reply behind his lighted cheroot.

Arrived in their bungalow they undressed in their rooms and in pyjamas
and slippers came out into the compound, where on either side of a table
on which was a lighted lamp stood their bedsteads, the mattress of each
covered with a thin strip of soft China matting. For in the hot weather
in many parts of India this must be used to lie upon instead of a linen
sheet, which would become saturated with perspiration. Looking carefully
at the ground over which they passed for fear of snakes they reached and
lay down on their beds, over each of which a _punkah_ was suspended from
a cross-beam supported by two upright posts sunk in the ground. One rope
moved both _punkahs_, and the motive power was supplied by a coolie
who, salaaming to the sahibs and seating himself on the ground, picked
up the end of the rope and began to pull. Raymond put out the lamp.

Wargrave stared up at the moon for a while. Then he said:

"I say, Ray; didn't Mrs. Norton look lovely to-night? Didn't that dress
suit her awfully well?"

"Oh, go to sleep, old man. We've got to get up in a few hours for this
confoundedly early parade. Goodnight," growled the adjutant, turning on