in refined debauchery. It strikes me as a particularly unhallowed
combination."

"No sensible man has any use for hoodoo tricks and the people who
practise them," Harding said. "They're frauds from the start."

"Don't know what you're talking about!" Benson broke in. "Not all
tricks. Seen funny things in the East; thingsh decent men better leave
alone."

Letting go the post, he lurched forward; and as the light fell on his
face Blake started. He had been puzzled by something familiar in the
voice, and now he recognized the man, and had no wish to meet him. He
was too late in hitching his chair back into the shadow, for Benson had
seen him and stopped with an excited cry.

"Blake of the sappers! Want to cut your old friendsh? Whatsh you
doing here?"

"It's a mutual surprise, Benson," Blake replied.

Benson, holding on by a chair back, smiled at him genially.

"Often wondered where you went to after you left Peshawur, old man.
Though you got the sack for it, it wasn't your fault the ghazees broke
our line that night. Said so to the Colonel--can see him now, sitting
there, looking very sick and cut up, and Bolsover, acting adjutant,
blinking like an owl."

"Be quiet!" Blake commanded in alarm, for the man had been a lieutenant