“Nay, Miss Sahib, it is well, rather. When the day comes that there is trouble on the border, and Kīlin Sahib does not ride, then the reign of the Sarkar will be ended in Khemistan, and it may be in all Hindustan also.” “That will do, Ismail Bakhsh,” said Dick, when he had interpreted the old man’s words. “Come into the drawing-room, Mab.” “But, Dick, it can’t be true? Isn’t some one playing a trick?” “We have never been able to bring it home to any one if it is a trick. Anstruther and I have watched in vain, and most of the fellows from the cantonments have had a try too. We heard just what you hear, but we could never see anything.” “Dick, I think you are most awfully brave.” Mabel shuddered as she pictured Dick and his friend approaching the sound, locating it exactly, perhaps--oh, horror!--hearing it pass between them, while still there was nothing to be seen. “Does it--he--ever come any nearer? How fearful if he should ride up to the door!” “Why, Mab, you don’t mean to say you believe in it?” Dick looked at her curiously. “It’s quite true that the sound is heard when there’s going to be trouble, for I have noticed it time after time; but I have a very simple theory to account for that. When the tribes living beyond this stretch of desert intend to make themselves disagreeable, they send mounted messengers to one another. The desert air carries sound well, and I’m not prepared to say that these rocks here may not have some peculiar property which makes them carry sound well too, but at any rate we hear, as if it was quite close, what is actually happening miles and miles away.” “Oh, do you really think so?” Mabel was much cheered. “But then, why should Georgia be frightened if she heard it?” “Because of the trouble it foreshadows, which is a sad and sober reality, not on account of the supernatural story the natives have taken it into their heads to get up.” Georgia’s entrance and the announcement of dinner banished the disquieting topic, and Mabel’s creepy sensations vanished speedily under the influence of the light and warmth and brightness encompassing the meal, so eminently Western and ordinary in its appointments save for the presence of the noiseless Hindu servants. Old times and scenes were discussed by the three, and family jokes recalled with infinite zest, in momentary entire forgetfulness of the turbulent frontier and the haunted desert outside. Shortly after a move had been made into the drawing-room, however, the flow of reminiscences was interrupted by the entrance of Dick’s subordinate, the handsome young civilian who had escorted Mabel to her brother’s door. He walked in unannounced, as one very much at home. “With Dr Tighe’s compliments to the rival practitioner,” he said, handing a copy of the _Lancet_ to Georgia. “I shall pass the Doctor’s quarters going home, Mrs North, so I can leave your _British Medical_ for him if you have done with it.”