in upon
the verandah her visitor had disappeared.

She stood and searched the compound with astonished eyes, but no sign of
him was visible. He must have removed himself with considerable rapidity
for so old a man, and remembering his extreme poverty, Olga was puzzled.
She had never known a native run away from _backsheesh_ before.

She sat down to her solitary breakfast, no longer actively anxious
concerning Nick, but still by no means easy. She was firmly convinced
that he was running risks in the city, and she longed to have him back.

The morning dragged away. She would not leave the bungalow lest he
should return in her absence. She busied herself with the making of a
fancy-dress which she and her _ayah_ had concocted for the coming ball
at the mess-house. It was to be quite an important affair, and every
European within reach was to attend--according to Noel's decree. He had
persuaded his colonel to have a purely European function for once,
pleading that it would be so much more like Home; and Colonel Bradlaw,
albeit with hesitation, had yielded the point. So to that one night's
entertainment no native guests had been invited.

Noel was looking forward to the event with an enthusiasm that simply
swept Olga along with it. She could not help being interested and in a
measure excited. It was an absolute impossibility to be lukewarm about
anything over which Noel was enthusiastic. He kindled enthusiasm
wherever he went. Native fancy-dresses were tabooed by the regulations.
Noel was supremely contemptuous of all things native. He meant to go as
Dick Turpin himself, and she had promised to support him in a dress of
the same period. It had taken considerable thought and skill to
manufacture, but it was now well on the road to completion, and she sat
and stitched at it throughout the morning, trying to stifle her
uneasiness in the attention which it demanded.

It was not an easy matter. She found herself starting at every sound,
and pausing to listen with nerves on edge. Still she persisted,
determined not to give way to them; and she was in fact gradually
schooling herself to a calmer frame of mind, when suddenly a thing
happened that bereft her in a moment of all the composure she had
striven so hard to attain. A man's hand shot--swiftly and
stealthily--from behind her and covered her eyes in a flash, while a
man's voice, soft and exultant, said mockingly above her head, "Guess!"

Olga uttered a cry that would hav