supper--none of the coryphées you boys are so proud of being seen about
with, but"--and, pausing impressively, he named a reigning lady of the
light-opera stage.

"You did!" exclaimed a subaltern.

"I did," he replied complacently.

"What did you talk about?" asked Major Dewes, and the Political Officer
suddenly grew serious.

"I was very interested," he said quietly. "I got knowledge which it was
good for me to have. I saw something which it was well for me to see. I
wished--I wish now--that some of the rulers and the politicians could
have seen what I saw that night."

A brief silence followed upon his words, and during that silence certain
sounds became audible--the beating of tom-toms and the cries of men. The
dinner-table was set in the verandah of an inner courtyard open to the
sky, and the sounds descended into that well quite distinctly, but
faintly, as if they were made at a distance in the dark, open country.
The six men seated about the table paid no heed to those sounds; they had
had them in their ears too long. And five of the six were occupied in
wondering what in the world Sir Charles Luffe, K.C.S.I., could have
learnt of value to him at a solitary supper party with a lady of comic
opera. For it was evident that he had spoken in deadly earnest.

Captain Lynes of the Sikhs broke the silence:

"What's this?" he asked, as an orderly offered to him a dish.