A sneer, aimed at the Lieutenant-Governor’s literary production, trembled on Bethune’s lips, but he prudently suppressed it. "You cannot deceive me, friend," cried he, abruptly; then: "You have flown with the birds of battle and heard the cannon roar, and thought the smell of the powder sweet." Again the Pathan smiled; and Bethune, watching him, was stirred, he knew not why, as by a glimpse of something at once immeasurably fierce and immeasurably sad. "Sir," said Muhammed, in slow deliberate English, "I have seen many things; and no man knows where his fate leads him." "Oh, no doubt!" said Bethune, laughing not very pleasantly. He was irritated with the fellow’s impenetrability and his own inability to deal with it. "And so fate has brought you to a wealthy master," said he, tauntingly; "and you think that this scribbling business will prove worth your while. ’Tis certainly an odd job for a Pathan! ... I trust well paid?" "I sought the post, sir," said Muhammed. "My master, since he is to be called my master," a sudden fire leaped and died in his eyes, "will no doubt pay me what he owes me. When I come into my own country again, it may be I shall have found it worth my while." To this the officer made no reply. After a second’s pause, Muhammed lifted his hand to his brow once more and moved away on the noiseless turf. Bethune turned to watch the swing of the strange figure through the trees. "Greed for money, and wily determination to get to lucrative posts in life—ambition to play the European—or—what?" No motive that his sober common sense could accept as a plausible alternative. Yes, his previous impression had been correct; nothing but a desire for self-advancement—nothing but greed and an Eastern cleverness to seek opportunities—animated that splendid bronze, after all! A disappointing specimen to one who loved the warrior race; a specimen of the westernised Eastern—degenerate leopard, with the spirit eliminated and the wiliness twice developed, according to the law of nature that so often strengthens one attribute by the elimination of another. *CHAPTER XII* The old tin box again and the breath of terrible India in this quiet English room. Siege, struggle, treachery, bloodshed, hunger, thirst, and fever, the extremes of heat and cold, the death agony of the young comrade—this was the story it held. The story of the difficult grave dug in the rock; of the inexorable exigency of the moment, the narrow strait for England’s honour which could allow no lingering thought for him that was become useless; of the drawing together of the ranks to hide the gap and keep up the long fight. The story of every conceivable distress of the flesh, every sordid misery of the body, every anxiety of the mind; of hopeless outlook, lingering torture. But, above all, the record of the indomitable purpose; of the white and red crossed flag floating high—of the spirit unconquerable, even to death.