“I’ll have it all attended to, to-morrow, when I look it over,” said the Major, hastening away to the Club. “Ram has been at the hashish, or bhang, or the betel nut, or some of his recondite dissipations--perhaps he has enjoyed an opium bout in the Zenana,” mused the new appointee, as he gayly “begged off” from a cloud of eager congratulations by promising to “blow off” the whole Delhi Club. “Business first, pleasure afterwards” said the resplendent Major Hawke, as he clattered away, a handsome son of Mars, to report to General Willoughby. Major Hawke was secretly delighted with his cordial reception. “Come to me to-morrow at ten, Major,” said the Commander, “I will have your first instructions, but remember absolute secrecy. This is a very grave affair to both of us--your coming employment.” “The tide of life is bearing me on, with a devilish rapidity, with favoring gales,” the Major reflected. But beyond the clouds veiling the future he saw no farther shore. In the dim watches of the night for a week past, Simpson, secretly busied with preparing Hugh Johnstone’s flitting, was perplexed at the sound of shuffling feet and whispered voices in the master’s rooms opening into the splendid gardens. “Who the devil has he there? Some woman!” mused the old veteran servant. Simpson had his own little “private life” to wind up, and so he was charitably inclined. It was his custom when all was still to slip away “to the quarter” where some lingering cords were now slowly snapping one by one. The old servant noted with surprise a dark form gliding on his trail in several of these goings and comings. Being of a practical nature, the man who had faced the mad rebels at Lucknow only belted on a heavy Adams revolver, and concluded at last that some others of the household were busied in secret dissipation or nocturnal lovemaking. “No one man has a controlling patent on being a fool,” mused Simpson. “Black and white, we’re all of a muchness.” And as he knew they might now leave at any moment he sped away to his last delightful nights in Delhi. On the night when Alan Hawke returned from Calcutta, the inky blackness of an approaching storm wrapped dreaming Delhi in an impenetrable mantle. Under the huge camphor tree where the cobra had risen in its horrid menace before the frightened girl, a dark figure waited till a man glided to his side. His head was bent as the spy reported “Simpson is gone to the quarter. Two of our men have followed him, and, if he returns, he will be stopped on the way.” The only answer was an outstretched arm, and the whispered words, “Go, then, and watch.” “It is the very night--the night of all nights!” muttered the watcher under the tree, and then, stealing forward, he tapped three times at the window where Hugh Johnstone stood with his heart beating high in all the pride of a coming triumph ready to open to the man who was settling his private affairs.