But the colonel, an Indian officer of many years' service, was popularly supposed to have led a life of adventure, and to have figured in more than one story whose exciting incidents could well bear repetition. As a rule, he was a taciturn man, and it was by no means easy to "set him talking," as the story goes. The present seemed an opportunity too good to be lost, and several voices demanded the experience by whose authority he had spoken so decidedly. "Well, yes," said Colonel Eyre slowly, "I have seen a presentiment very remarkably fulfilled. I am not much of a hand at yarning, but, if you wish, I have no objection to give you a leaf out of my own book, if it's only that you may leave my friend Tom here in peace to follow his own course, without badgering him about it. Yes, I mean you, Mr. Jones," he went on, impaling that helpless youngster with a glance that sent him nervously to the spirit case, while the rest of us settled ourselves comfortably to listen, and Sir Alan, with a "Fire ahead, colonel," drew his chair forward into a better position. "It was a good while after the breaking of the monsoon in '68," began the colonel, slowly; "the weather was cool and pleasant enough, so that, on the face of it, it seemed no great hardship when I was ordered to take a detachment down to Sumbalpar. I was stationed at Raipur at the time, in the Orissa district, and word came of some trouble with the Zemindars above Sumbalpar. The only thing that seemed inconvenient was the suddenness of the order. It was just 'Fall in and march out' without delay of an hour. I was a young married man in those days, pretty much in the position of my friend Tom Everton, with a wife of two years and a bit of a baby a few months old. It wasn't pleasant to leave them behind me in a place like Raipur, and, of course, it was out of the question to start them at an hour's notice. I spoke to my bearer, Josein, one of the best native servants I ever saw, and directed him to make arrangements for an early march on the following morning. He was to see my family driven quietly over to Sumbalpar in the tonga. They were to travel by easy stages under the charge of a careful bilewallah. If there are any 'griffs' in this company, I may explain for their benefit that a tonga is a kind of bullock wagon, and a bilewallah is the driver of the same. Well, I had just time for a few words of comfort and farewell--Tom will appreciate all that--before I rode out of Raipur at the head of my column. We camped that night in the jungle, after a march of about twenty miles, and it was under canvas that I was visited with the dream or presentiment, or whatever you choose to call it, that gives such point as it may possess to this old-time yarn of mine." The colonel paused to refill his glass, but every one's interest was now awakened, and no one broke the momentary silence that ensued.