“No, no; but ordinary children. Sweet is extraordinary. Colonel Sladen has won ever so much money from Captain Waring, and if it pays her passage, for once gambling will have done _some_ good. All the same, I wish he would do something better with his money. Uncle Pelham says it is such a frightful example to other young men.” “Yes; and he has no luck. He might just as well draw a cheque, and send it to the secretary to distribute among the members, for it is only a loss of time, and would amount to precisely the same thing in the end.” “Minus the delightful excitement of gambling, you forgot _that_! It seems too bad to squander money in that way--when there is such poverty and misery everywhere. Even a few pounds can do wonders, and change people’s lives altogether. Sometimes it appears to me that money is in wrong hands--and its owners don’t recognize their responsibilities.” “A great fortune _is_ a great responsibility,” remarked her companion gravely. “It is so hard to know when to give, and when not to give. I think people with moderate incomes have much the best of it.” “It is a capital joke, if any one could but hear us--deploring the drawbacks of wealth, you and I--the two poor relations. At least I speak for myself,” with a merry smile. “And I must speak for _myself_. I have long wished to tell you something, Miss Gordon. I have rather shirked doing it, because I’m afraid you will be vexed; but----” The sudden snapping of a twig on the edge of the bank overhanging the road caused him to glance up. There stood a large leopard, in the act of springing; like a flash it alighted just a yard behind them, and then bounded back with poor Ben in its mouth! It all was the work of two seconds. “Oh, Ben--poor Ben!” shrieked Honor, frantically. “Let us save him; we must save him.” Jervis snatched the alpenstock from her hand, and ran up the bank. Leopards are notorious cowards; the brute halted one instant, dropped his prey, and sprang lightly away among the undergrowth. But, alas! poor Ben was stone dead; three minutes ago he had been full of life, now a bite in his throat had ended his happy existence; there he lay, with his eyes wide open, fixed in an expression of frozen horror. His death was on him almost ere he knew it; he was dead as he was carried off the road. As he lay limp across Honor’s lap, her tears trickled slowly, and dropped on his still warm body. Aunt Sara--who was to tell her? Oh, what an ending to her birthday! And she had often dreaded this end for Ben--almost as if it was a presentiment, and had always been so urgent to have him home by sundown. There was scarcely a house in Shirani that had not paid toll to the “lugger buggas,” as the natives call them, who were specially keen about dogs--short-haired dogs, and who hung about paths and cookhouses in their vicinity after dark. But this murder had been done in broad daylight, long ere it was even dusk.