As it happened, Lieutenant-Colonel Ross-Ellison, in very different guise, had seen Sergeant Lawrence-Smith extricate and withdraw his officerless company from the tightest of tight places (on the Border) in a manner that moved him to large admiration. It had been a case of "and even the ranks of Tuscany" on the part of Mir Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan Ilderim Dost Mahommed.... Later he had encountered him and Captain Malet-Marsac at Duri. § 3. SERGEANT-MAJOR LAWRENCE-SMITH. Mrs. Pat Dearman was sceptical. "Do you mean to tell me that _you_, a man of science, an eminent medical man, and a soldier, believe in the supernatural?" "Well, you see, I'm 'Oirish' and therefore unaccountable," replied Colonel Jackson (of the Royal Army Medical Corps), fine doctor, fine scholar, and fine gentleman. "And you believe in haunted houses and ghosts and things, do you? _Well_!" The salted-almond dish was empty, and Mrs. Dearman accused her other neighbour, Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison. Having already prepared to meet and rebut the charge of greediness he made passes over the vessel and it was replenished. "Supernatural!" said she. "Most," said he. She prudently removed the dish to the far side of her plate--and Colonel Jackson emptied it. Not having prepared to meet the request to replenish the store a second time, it was useless for Mr. Ross-Ellison to make more passes when commanded so to do. "The usual end of the 'supernatural,'" observed Mrs. Dearman with contempt. "Most usual," said he. "More than 'most,'" corrected Mrs. Dearman. "It is the invariable end of it, I believe. Just humbug and rubbish. It is either an invention, pure and simple, or else it is perfectly explicable. Don't you think so, Colonel Jackson?" "Not always," said her partner. "Now, will you, first, believe my word, and, secondly, find the explanation--if I tell you a perfectly true 'supernatural' story?" "I'll certainly believe your word, Colonel, if you're serious, and I'll try and suggest an explanation if you like," replied Mrs. Dearman. "Same to me, Mrs. Dearman?" asked Mr. Ross-Ellison. "I've had 'experiences' too--and can tell you one of them." "Same to you, Mr. Ross-Ellison," replied Mrs. Dearman, and added: "But why only one of them?" Mr. Ross-Ellison smiled, glanced round the luxuriously appointed table and the company of fair women and brave men--and thought of a far-distant and little-known place called Mekran Kot and of a phantom cavalry corps that haunted a valley in its vicinity. "Only one worth telling," said he. "Well,--first case," began Colonel Jackson, "I was once driving past a cottage on my way home from College (in Ireland), and I saw the old lady who lived in that cottage come out of the door, cross her bit of garden, go through a gate, scuttle over the railway-line and enter a fenced field that had belonged to her husband, and which she (and a good many other people) believed rightly belonged to her.