Rose fell to the care of Burgoyne, there were no ladies for either Waller or Denzil (and some other subalterns), who brought up the rear; and the latter, to his infinite annoyance, found himself seated at a distance from her, and barely able at times to catch a glance beyond a gigantic plated epergne, filled with fruit and false flowers. From his junior rank and years, he could scarcely have expected anything else, for ladies were still scarce up country, and scarcer still beyond the Khyber Pass; but Denzil felt that somehow his day had begun inauspiciously. The khansamah (or butler), and a dozen of other Hindoo servants, were in attendance; and the business of luncheon proceeded rapidly. Polwhele and Burgoyne were still talking of their morning march into the hills of Siah Sung, and made light of killing so many of the natives, having only two rank and file killed, and one wounded severely, partaking the while of what was set before them with as much unconcern and heartiness, as if they had been snipe-shooting, or pig-sticking, in the jungle, for in that part of the world danger became a pastime. "So one of Burgoyne's sepoys was wounded?" asked Elphinstone. "Yes, General; his legs are scarcely quite to the regimental pattern now." "How so, Polwhele?" "A ball from a juzail smashed the knee; so the limb was amputated." This elicited a little chorus of commiseration from the ladies, but as the sufferer was a native, it soon subsided. "Any word, General, of your aide-de-camp Trevelyan of ours?" asked Waller. "None--save that he was off the sick list, and soon to leave Bombay and join us here," replied Trecarrel; "but if this news about the passes be true, I hope he will be in no hurry to come this way; he is a fine fellow, Trevelyan." (The name found an echo in Denzil's heart, which sank for a moment.) "I knew him when in the 14th Hussars, at Agra," said Burgoyne to Rose; "he was not then the heir to a title." She coloured perceptibly. Denzil did not see this, but Mabel did, and she laughed. "If the passes are actually closed, it is deuced lucky we got up those nine-pounder guns in time," said Trecarrel to Elphinstone. "I wrote--ugh--ugh--for--ugh--_three_ eighteen pounders," replied the other, coughing feebly. "And the mistake was that of the military Board?" "Exactly," said Jack Polwhele; "they made it a case of arithmetic; and in lieu of three eighteen pound guns, sent you six long nines, which are useless for the battery-work that Ackbar Khan may ere long cut out for us." "Oh that hideous Ackhar Khan!" exclaimed Rose, with young ladylike horror; "I have seen him once, and his mouth, when he laughed, reminded me of nothing so much as two rows of piano keys." "Hideous!" said Burgoyne; "pardon me, is he not thought very handsome?"