But their "back" was ready to receive the ball, and Desmond along with it. Both players struck simultaneously. Their cane-handled sticks met with a crack that was heard all over the ground. Then the ball leapt clean through the goal-posts, the head of Desmond's stick leapt after it, and the crowd scattered right and left before a thundering onrush of ponies. Cheer upon cheer, yell upon yell, went up from eight thousand throats at once. British soldiers flung their helmets in the air; the band lost its head and broke into a triumphant clash of discord; while Colonel Buchanan, forgetful of his Scottish decorum, stood up in the drag and shouted like any subaltern. He was down in the thick of the _melee_, ready to greet Desmond as he rode off the battlefield, a breathless unsightly victor, covered with dust and glory. "Stunningly played--the whole lot of you!" "Thank you, sir. Good enough, isn't it?" A vigorous handshake supplied the rest; and Desmond trotted forward to the dog-cart, where Evelyn greeted him with a rush of congratulation. Honor had no word, but Desmond found her eyes and smile sufficiently eloquent. "Best fight, bar none, I ever had in my life!" he declared by way of acknowledgment. "We're all off to the B.C. Mess as soon as the L.G. has presented the Cup, and we've got some of the dust out of our throats. Come along, Paul, old man." And he went his way in such elation of spirits as a captain may justly feel whose team has carried off the Punjab Cup in the face of overwhelming odds. CHAPTER XVI. SIGNED AND SEALED. "Leave the dead moments to bury their dead; Let us kiss, and break the spell." --OWEN MEREDITH. The Fancy Ball, given on Old Year's night by the Punjab Commission, was, in Evelyn's eyes, the supreme event of the week; and when Desmond, after a mad gallop from the Bengal Cavalry Mess, threw open his bedroom door, he was arrested by a vision altogether unexpected, and altogether satisfying to his fastidious taste. A transformed Evelyn stood before the long glass, wrapt in happy contemplation of her own image. From the fillet across her forehead, with its tremulous wire antennae, to the sandalled slipper that showed beneath her silken draperies, all was gold. Two shimmering wings of gauze sprang from her shoulders; her hair, glittering with gold dust, waved to her waist; and a single row of topaz gleamed on the pearl tint of her throat like drops of wine. "By Jove, Ladybird,--how lovely you look!" She started, and turned upon him a face of radiance. "I'm the Golden Butterfly. Do you like me, Theo, really?" "I do;--no question. Where on earth did you get it all?" "At Simla, last year. Muriel Walter invented it for me." Her colour deepened, and she lowered her eyes. "I didn't show it to you before,--because----"