This virtual promise that the former recommendation would hold good, and that the Victoria Cross--most coveted of honours--would be his, dazzled our hero for a space. To Ted's credit be it said that his next thought was for poor Tynan. "Thank you, sir! I--I hope Tynan won't be disgraced, sir. It was not altogether his fault." "It will be necessary," said Sir John gravely, "to make public sufficient to clear your character. I have allowed him to resign, and he clears out to-night. I am glad, my lad, that you should have considered him." "Wait a moment," said the ruler of the Punjab as Ted rose to go. "How would you like a commission in a corps of Irregular Horse?" "Punjabis, sir?" "Yes. Colonel Boldre, whose regiment has mutinied, is raising a corps in the Balandghar district, and he has written to ask me if you may join him. I think it would be a good thing, and should advise you to jump at the chance." "Is there any likelihood of seeing active service with them, sir?" The great statesman burst into one of his hearty laughs. He remembered the days when he was the age of Ted Russell--how he had longed to be a soldier like his father, who had led the forlorn hope at Seringapatam, or like his hero-brother Henry. The chuckles ceased, giving place to a sad smile as he thought of those past days. "A soldier I was born, and a soldier I will be!" he had declared as a lad, for all his family were soldiers. But the Lawrences were poor, and the civil service gave better remuneration than the military, and for his mother's and sisters' sakes John Lawrence had put aside the dream of his boyhood that he might earn enough to keep them from want. He knit his great brows and looked Ted up and down, and the boy did not know whether the grim administrator was pleased or displeased with him. "So you have not smelt enough powder, eh?" he asked at length. "I want to do my share, sir." "Boldre's Horse are going to Cawnpore to join Sir Colin Campbell at once. The colonel will be setting out from Balandghar in a day or two, with perhaps a couple of hundred sowars, Sikhs, Pathans, and Punjabi Mohammedans. Mr. Jackson is raising a few score Sikhs and Dogras for him in the Jalandar district, and you are to set out at once to take charge of them, joining your commandant at Delhi." "Thank you, sir! it's just what I should have chosen."