better master no man need ever wish to have--kind, generous, and a
perfect gentleman from top to toe. I loved him, and would have gone
through fire and water to serve him."

Her ladyship's fan was trembling again. "Oblige me with my salts, Miss
Hope," she said. She pressed them to her nose, and motioned to the
Sergeant to proceed.

"When I had been with the Captain a few months," resumed the old
soldier, "he got leave of absence for several weeks, and everybody knew
that it was his intention to spend his holiday in a shooting excursion
among the hills. I was to go with him, of course, and the usual troop of
native servants; but besides himself there was only one European
gentleman in the party, and he was not an Englishman. He was a Russian,
and his name was Platzoff. He was a gentleman of fortune, and was
travelling in India at the time, and had come to my master with letters
of introduction. Well, Captain Chillington just took wonderfully to him,
and the two were almost inseparable. Perhaps it hardly becomes one like
me to offer an opinion on such a point; but, knowing what afterwards
happened, I must say that I never either liked or trusted that Russian
from the day I first set eyes on him. He seemed to me too double-faced
and cunning for an honest English gentleman to have much to do with. But
he had travelled a great deal, and was very good company, which was
perhaps the reason why Captain Chillington took so kindly to him. Be
that as it may, however, it was decided that they should go on the
hunting excursion together--not that the Russian was much of a shot, or
cared a great deal about hunting, but because, as I heard him say, he
liked to see all kinds of life, and tiger-stalking was something quite
fresh to him.