gh the form of seeing whether we had waited for him. Lieutenant
Lascelles, on leave from his regiment in India, had taken French leave.
When inquiry was made at the hotel, where dinner had been ordered by
Mr. Dawson and covers laid for a dozen, he had just stepped out. No one
seemed to know exactly where to find him. The hotel people thought he
was with the Mr. Dawsons, and they thought he was at the hotel. When
they surrounded the tent, and then rushed it, all that it contained was
the body of old Jacob Benton, lying dead drunk on the floor. A horse-rug
was over him, his racing saddle under his head, and his pockets stuffed
with five-pound notes. He had won his race and got his money, so he was
not bound in honour to keep sober a minute longer.

Rainbow was gone, and there was nothing to be got out of him as to who
had taken him or which way he had gone. Nobody seemed to have 'dropped'
to me. I might have stayed at Turon longer if I'd liked. But it wasn't
good enough by a long way.

We rode away straight home, and didn't lose time on the road, you bet.
Not out-and-out fast, either; there was no need for that. We had a
clear two hours' start of the police, and their horses were pretty well
knocked up by the pace they'd come home at, so they weren't likely to
overhaul us easy.

It was a grand night, and, though we didn't feel up to much in the way
of talking, it wasn't bad in its way. Starlight rode Rainbow, of course;
and the old horse sailed away as if a hundred miles or a thousand made
no odds to him.

Warrigal led the way in front. He always went as straight as a line,
just the same as if he'd had a compass in his forehead. We never had any
bother about the road when he led the way.

'There's nothing like adventure,' says Starlight, at last. 'As some one
says, who would have thought we should have come out so well? Fortune
favours the brave, in a general way, there's no doubt. By George! what
a comfort it was to feel one's self a gentleman again and to associate
with one's equals. Ha! ha! how savage Sir Ferdinand is by this time, and
the Commissioner! As for the Dawsons, they'll make a joke of it. Fancy
my dining at the camp! It's about the best practical joke I ever carried
out, and I've been in a good many.'

'The luckiest turn we've ever had,' says I. 'I never expected to see
Gracey and Aileen there, much less to go to a ball with them and no one
to say no. It beats the world.'

'It makes it all the roughe