"Hang it! It's a _true_ yarn. Well, he jammed the thing to his head _again_, and it missed fire, and he said that he felt ready to cry with rage, he was so disgusted. So he took it by the muzzle and hit himself on the head with it." "Good man! Didn't it go off _then_?" "No, but the blow knocked him silly, and he thought he was dead. He was awfully pleased, for he had been fiddling over the show for nearly half an hour. He dropped down and died. When he got his wits again, he was shaking with the fever worse than ever, but he had sense enough to go and knock up the doctor and give himself into his charge as a lunatic. Then he went clean off his head till the fever wore out." "That's a good story," said Revel critically. "I didn't think you had it in you at this season of the year." "I can believe it," said the man they called Saveloy. "Fever makes one do all sorts of queer things. I suppose your friend was mad with it when he discovered it would be so healthy to die." "S'pose so. The fever must have been so bad that he felt all right--same way that a man who is nearly mad with drink gets to look sober. Well, anyhow, there was a man who died." "Did he tell you what it felt like?" "He said that he was awfully happy until his fever came back and shook him up. Then he was sick with fear. I don't wonder. He'd had rather a narrow escape." "That's nothing," said Saveloy. "I know a man who lived." "So do I," said Revel. "Lots of 'em, confound 'em." "Now, this takes Martha's story, and it's quite true." "They always are," said Martha. "I've noticed that before." "Never mind, I'll forgive you. But this happened to me. Since you _are_ talking tombs, I'll assist at the séance. It was in '82 or '83, I have forgotten which. Anyhow, it was when I was on the Utamamula Canal Headworks, and I was chumming with a man called Stovey. You've never met him because he belongs to the Bombay side, and if he isn't really dead by this he ought to be somewhere there now. He was a _pukka_ sweep, and I hated him. We divided the Canal bungalow between us, and we kept strictly to our own side of the buildings." "Hold on! I call. What was Stovey to look at?" said Revel. "Living picture of the King of Spades--a blackish, greasy sort of ruffian who hadn't any pretence of manners or form. He used to dine in the kit he had been messing about the Canal in all day, and I don't believe he ever washed. He had the embankments to look after, and I was in charge of the headworks, but he was always contriving to fall foul of me if he possibly could." "I know that sort of man. Mullane of Ghoridasah's built that way."