These two officers and friends had ridden over that afternoon from Delhi on a visit to their friend, the colonel, with the object of discussing the portentous signs of the times, for the air was filled with rumours, and mutiny had displayed itself. Discontent was rampant in the native regiments, and the question was to what extent would it go? If there were those amongst the British who read the handwriting on the wall with ill-concealed alarm, it is none the less true that the majority of the officers in Upper India were rather disposed to laugh these fears to scorn. For with the almost fatuous self-reliance peculiar to the English, they believed they were powerful enough to hold their own against any number of natives. With one exception, perhaps, all the gentlemen there belonged to the first category. The exception was Richard Shelton. He was young, and had but recently received his promotion, and not only was he endowed with an unusual share of animal spirits, but he was of a sanguine, almost enthusiastic temperament, and moreover he was in love. On the first blush that may seem a reason why he should have been more anxious, but love is ever hopeful, and indisposed to look on the gloomy side of things. At any rate, being full of the fire of youth, and not having yet acquired the staid wisdom of his elders, young Shelton did not trouble himself much about what the morrow or the next week might bring forth. Very likely, if somebody had said to him-- ‘I say, Shelton, old fellow, if the natives were to rise what would you do?’ This answer would have come with a ringing laugh--‘Why, go for them, and smash them. What else would you have me do?’ The young lady with whom Shelton was in love was the colonel’s niece, Blanche Merton, an orphan girl of great beauty, and the colonel’s ward. She had only come out to India a year before as governess to her cousin--the colonel’s daughter. Blanche had been born and had spent most of her life in one of the sweetest and breeziest of Hampshire villages, and she had not resided long enough in India to become jaded and enervated by the climate, which, in course of time, insidiously undermines the constitutions of white women. A handsomer couple, and a couple more suited to each other than Lieutenant Shelton and Blanche Merton, could not have been found in the whole of British India. They had known each other eight months, and been desperately in love nearly the whole time. The conversation of the little party had flagged somewhat, but suddenly Willoughby asked in a preoccupied way: ‘What is going to be the upshot of matters, colonel, do you think?’ This question had reference to the mutinous spirit that had shown itself. There had been a parade on the 24th of April, when eighty-five out of ninety men had mutinied, and that very week, beginning with the 1st of May, they were to be tried, and the cantonment was accordingly greatly excited.