“Wait, only wait a couple of weeks, Eric!” said the Major, whose eyes were now turned daily to Simpson. “Then I’ll put in my own application, and we’ll go home together.” This bright hope was duly pledged in many a loving cup. General Abercromby was far away on the road to Calcutta when Major-General Willoughby sent, posthaste, for Major Harry Hardwicke of the Corps of Engineers. The puzzled Commanding General was racking his brains to find out if his old friend Abercromby had committed any fatal error during his somewhat bacchanalian visit on “special duty.” “I’m glad he is gone” mused the stout-hearted, thick-headed old Commander, as he read, over and over, the Viceroy’s cipher dispatch to the departed General. “Do nothing further! Turn over all property, on invoice, to General Willoughby, and report here forthwith. Hold no communication with Johnstone, and guard an absolute silence. Report in person, instantly on your arrival.” “Something has surely gone wrong!” at last decided Willoughby. “Old Hugh Fraser Johnstone may have been too much for him. Strange, the Viceroy says nothing of him!” And then he read a second dispatch, with the Viceroy’s orders to himself. “Notify Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, to report in person, to the Viceroy for special duty, prepared to go in a week to England on duty. Absolute secrecy required. His leave application will be approved for any period, to take effect on his completion of duties assigned, in London. Special cipher orders will be sent to him this A.M. Deliver them and furnish him the code No. 2. No copies to be retained. Furnish Major Hardwicke with a captain and ten picked men to escort the property received by General Abercromby to Calcutta. Invoices to you to be signed by him. Property to be sent down in sealed pay-chests, with your seal and Major Hardwicke’s. Report compliance, and telegraph in cipher No. 2 Hardwicke’s departure for Calcutta. Special transportation has been ordered.” “There, my boy, you have your orders!” an hour later said General Willoughby when Major Hardwicke reported. “I am glad to have the whole thing off my hands. Here is the double-ciphered code. You are to translate for yourself, and, remember, then destroy your translation. Remember, also, one single whisper of your destination, and you are a ruined man! Evidently the Viceroy is bent on trapping old Hugh Johnstone. Damn him, for a sneaking civilian! I never trusted him!” And the old General rolled away for his family tiffin. “I’ll see you when you have translated the private orders. Thank God, the Viceroy keeps me out of this dirty muddle! You see, I have no power over Johnstone--he is a blasted civilian.” Two hours later, the grateful old General found Hardwicke pacing up and down impatiently. “I ought only to tell Murray,” he murmured, “if I could! He is going home to be married, and I am to stand up with him.”