out soft, quivering waves of heat, as a wheel, spinning, throws off
delicate spray. A hundred yards away the sea spread out, languid and
huge. It was under-tinged with all the colours of a morning sunrise over
Mount Bobar not far beyond, lifting up its somnolent and massive head
into the Eastern sky. "League-long rollers" came in as steady as columns
of infantry, with white streamers flying along the line, and hovering a
moment, split, and ran on the shore in a crumbling foam, like myriads of
white mice hurrying up the sand.

A little cloud of tobacco smoke came curling out of a window of the
Residency. It was sniffed up by the orderly, whose pipe was in barracks,
and must lie there untouched until evening at least; for he had stood at
this door since seven that morning, waiting orders; and he knew by the
look on Colonel Cumner's face that he might be there till to-morrow.

But the ordinary spectator could not have noticed any difference in
the general look of things. All was quiet, too, in the big native city.
At the doorways the worker in brass and silver hammered away at his
metal, a sleepy, musical assonance. The naked seller of sweetmeats went
by calling his wares in a gentle, unassertive voice; in dark doorways
worn-eyed women and men gossiped in voices scarce above a whisper; and
brown children fondled each other, laughing noiselessly, or lay asleep on
rugs which would be costly elsewhere. In the bazaars nothing was
selling, and no man did anything but mumble or eat, save the few scholars
who, cross-legged on their mats, read and laboured towards Nirvana.
Priests in their yellow robes and with bare shoulders went by, oblivious
of all things.

Yet, too, the keen observer could have seen gathered into shaded corners
here and there, a few sombre, low-voiced men talking covertly to each