d to keep you here; but now that we have got orders to go
off and have a talk with these tribes in the north, it is clearly
impossible for us to keep you any longer. I am very sorry, my boy,
for you know we all like you, for your own sake and for your good
father's."

"I am awfully obliged to you all, colonel. You have been very good
to me, since my father was killed. I feel that I have had no right
to stop here so long; but I quite understand that, now you are
moving up into the hills, you cannot keep me.

"I suppose I could not go as a volunteer, colonel?" he asked,
wistfully.

"Quite impossible," the colonel said, decidedly. "Even if you had
been older, I could not have taken you. Every mouth will have to be
fed, and the difficulties of transport will be great. There is no
possibility, whatever, of our smuggling a lad of your age up with
us.

"Besides, you know that you ought to go to England, without further
delay. You want to gain a commission, and to do that you must pass
a very stiff examination, indeed. So for your own sake, it is
advisable that you should get to work without any unnecessary
delay.

"A party of invalids will be going down tomorrow, and you can go
with them as far as Peshawar. There, of course, you will take train
either to Calcutta or Bombay. I know that you have plenty of funds
for your journey to England. I think you said that it was an uncle
to whom you were going. Mind you impress upon him the fact that it
is absolutely necessary that you should go to a first-rate school
or, better still, to a private crammer, if you are to have a chance
of getting into the service by a competitive examination."

"Very well, colonel. I am sure that I am very grateful to you, and
all the officers of the regiment, for the kindness you have shown
me, especially since my father's death. I shall always remember
it."

"That is all right, Lisle. It has been a pleasure to have you with
us. I am sure we shall all be sorry to lose you, but I hope that
some day we shall meet again, when you are an officer in one of our
regiments."

Lisle returned to the bungalow and called the butler, the only
servant he had retained.

"Look here, Robah, the colonel says that I must go down with a sick
party, tomorrow. As I have told you, I am determined to go up
country with the troops. Of course, I must be in disguise. How do
you think that I had better go?"

The man shook his head.

"The young sahib had better join