norted, and married Captains looked unutterable
wisdom, and the juniors scoffed, those two were engaged.

The Senior Subaltern was so pleased with getting his Company and his
acceptance at the same time that he forgot to bother The Worm. The girl
was a pretty girl, and had money of her own. She does not come into this
story at all.

One night, at beginning of the hot weather, all the Mess, except The Worm
who had gone to his own room to write Home letters, were sitting on the
platform outside the Mess House. The Band had finished playing, but no one
wanted to go in. And the Captains' wives were there also. The folly of a
man in love is unlimited. The Senior Subaltern had been holding forth on
the merits of the girl he was engaged to, and the ladies were purring
approval, while the men yawned, when there was a rustle of skirts in the
dark, and a tired, faint voice lifted itself.

"Where's my husband?"

I do not wish in the least to reflect on the morality of the "Shikarris";
but it is on record that four men jumped up as if they had been shot.
Three of them were married men. Perhaps they were afraid that their wives
had come from Home unbeknownst. The fourth said that he had acted on the
impulse of the moment. He explained this afterwards.

Then the voice cried: "Oh Lionel!" Lionel was the Senior Subaltern's name.
A woman came into the little circle of light by the candles on the peg
tables, stretching out her hands to the dark where the Senior Subaltern
was, and sobbing. We rose to our feet, feeling that things were going to
happen and ready to believe the worst. In this bad, small world of ours,
one knows so little of the life of the next man--which, after all, is
entirely his own concern--that one is not surprised when a crash comes.
Anything might turn up any day for anyone. Perhaps the Senior Subaltern
had been trapped in his youth. Men are crippled that way occasionally. We
didn't know; we wanted to hear; and the Captains' wives were as anxious as
we. If he _had_ been trapped, he was to be excused; for the woman from
nowhere, in the dusty shoes and gray traveling dress, was very lovely,
with black hair and great eyes full of tears. She was tall, with a fine
figure, and her voice had a running sob in it pitiful to hear. As soon as
the Senior Subaltern stood up, she threw her arms round his neck, and
called him "my darling" and said she could not bear waiting alone in
England, and his letters were so short and co