This bungalow was the home of an officer whom it is only necessary to refer to as the colonel. The sweet child playing there was his only daughter, and one of the ladies, whose beautiful face was clouded with an expression that might be described as half fear, half anxiety, was his wife. All the colonel’s male companions were officers, one of them being Lieutenant George Willoughby, of the Ordnance Commissariat Department. He was a young man, but was the officer in charge of the great Delhi magazine. He looked every inch a soldier, and his face expressed determination and force of character. Lounging there in a large chair, toying with a fragrant cigar, and apparently deeply interested in watching the little volumes of smoke curl upward as he puffed them from under his moustache, his legs crossed, his head thrown back, and one arm hanging listlessly over the rail of the chair, he was the picture of a quiet, unobtrusive English gentleman. But a slight study of the face would have convinced anyone that beneath that calm exterior lay a tremendous latent power that once aroused could be terrible and deadly to his enemies, and that this was really the case was soon to be amply proved. Another of the group was a still younger man, handsome as Apollo, and with a frame that seemed to be knit with steel. Although younger his military rank was equal to Willoughby’s, for he too was a lieutenant of the Bengal Artillery, and was also stationed at Delhi. His name was Richard Shelton, and, like his friend and colleague, he had a pronounced soldierly bearing, and his fine bright blue eyes, of the true English type, and his clear cut features and firm mouth, spoke of a frank, open, loyal, and brave nature.