To return to the moonlight picnic. Colonel Wilkinson was present in a grey dirzee-made flannel suit rather tight for his rounded proportions; his moustache was waxed to exaggeration; he wore a new pink washing tie, and he made himself conspicuous in ushering guests to their places, arranging the viands, concocting the salad, and distributing the iced hock—for he was always exceedingly hospitable in other people's houses. At present the company were assembled under the vault of heaven, but the stout little officer presided at the end of the tablecloth, with his fat legs crossed Buddha-wise, carved the cold Guinea fowl and ham, and pressed delicacies on his neighbours so assiduously, that a casual arrival would have supposed that in him he beheld the host. No one could be more genial or convivial at his neighbour's board than Richard Wilkinson, Lieutenant-Colonel. Angel shared a rug with her mother, and now and then stole her hand into hers and squeezed it gently, sure token of her absolute content; the pair were seated exactly opposite to Mrs. Dawson, who looked depressed and commonplace in an old-fashioned brown tussore garment. The child contemplated her gravely, with a mysteriously complacent expression in her large eyes; her stare exasperated the lady to such a pitch that more than once she was on the point of addressing her; the hot weather has a knack of warping people's tempers and reducing their nerves to fiddle-strings, and the combination of Angel's curious gaze and her mother's "model gown" was almost too much for Mrs. Dawson's equanimity. After dinner there were songs and games, and some wandered away in twos and threes down to the river. This was a tributary of Mother Gunga, a holy river, now much shrunken; its waters moved along with a deliberate solemnity befitting a sacred stream. The farther bank was clothed with tall reeds, and was the well-known haunt of alligators. Mrs. Wilkinson and Mr. Shafto were looking for one in company, and as they gazed up and down the banks more than one grey log of wood had misled them. Had Mrs. Wilkinson's doctor been of the party, he would have assured her that in those thin shoes and transparent dress, as she stood breathing malaria on the brink of the sluggish stream, she was boldly courting death. "There are generally three or four big fellows at the bend," said Shafto. "I've seen them when I come to that jheel to shoot snipe;" and he stooped to pick up a stone. "Oh, Mr. Shafto," gasped an agonised voice, "did you see it?" "The alligator?" flinging a stone as he spoke. "Yes; there he goes. Mark over. Watch him scuttling into the river." "No, no, no," stammered Mrs. Wilkinson. "The face—the face of a woman—floating past. It was just under the water." "Why, I declare, you are quite upset!" exclaimed her companion. "I'm most frightfully sorry you've seen—anything. Of course, you know that the natives bring all their dead to the river?"