Only a bugler was given to frivolity. Some weeks before, in the pride of his schooling, he had questioned a Memsahib eagerly, ‘Can the Presence read? Can the Presence write?’ and was crestfallen at meeting his match. Yet a professional hope remained. ‘Can the Presence beegle?’[10] he challenged, and established complete superiority. His mother had stood by his side that day; a tall, dignified, strictly secluded woman of the purdah, but neither she, nor any Indian wife or mother of the sepoy folk, stood watching the regiment depart. Only the Englishwomen bade all God speed, while the happy little bugler went forth to war and cheered his own performance. The British officers wheeled their chargers up to the group of their countrywomen; and the Indian officers left the shouting companies to step aside, salute, and shake hands. Then all passed on. The Sikh band struck up ‘For Auld Lang Syne,’ and many thought of the gallant comrade who would never be forgotten by his regiment, now leaving his lonely grave behind. It was a strangely dramatic chance that turned this regiment of all regiments away from the hills of the Mahsuds, for scarce six months were gone since that day when, with reversed arms, it had laid to rest the great Dodd, soldier, ruler, and friend of the frontier where he fell, foully murdered, amid the false peace of his own border garden. On the day of his burial the thunder roared from the treacherous hills, the Last Post bade him sleep well, the solemn volleys promised stern remembrance, and every officer and man of his regiment longed to avenge him according to the Rules of War. But the orders and directions ran otherwise, and so ‘Doran Sahib-ki-Paltan’ marched away from Waziristan, through Balu Ram’s Ghat, with all the officers of the brigade bearing it good company as far as the bridge of boats across the Indus, whence it set forth to a destination unknown, with the trusty and well-beloved Gentlemen leading. That night the young bearer realised suddenly that his Sahib had gone, and, like a dog that misses his master and gives chase, he stood up and clamoured to the officer’s wife, ‘Huzur, get me an ekha that I may now drive to Darya Khan while there is yet time. Without doubt I must of necessity go with my Sahib.’ Half an hour later a scarecrow wrapped in a blanket stood at her door, and a syce’s voice insisted, ‘Memsahib! Memsahib! get me an ekha and I will go to the Sahib and Moti the mare. And give no money to my brother, Huzur, for he has taken all my clothes so that I should not go. But I go now very swiftly. There is four annas to pay to the khansamah, if the Presence will give it? Salaam!’ And over the dim desert, through the starless night, by the groping light of little crazy oil lamps, with endless joltings and bumpings, to where the sleeping regiment waited to entrain at dawn, there drove urgently Burgwan Das, bearer, and Bhagu, syce. JOHN TRAVERS.