aps it will pay!" he mused. "But I will even
up with that old hog, Johnstone!" He dared not contemplate now any
substantial treason to Madame Alixe Delavigne. "She is a witch woman!
She seems to have an untold backing! The Bankers, even, the Viceroy, and
the French Consul-General, too. She could crush me! I must serve My Lady
Disdain, and I will fight and die in her army!" Arriving at Delhi, Major
Alan Hawke's first visit was to Ram Lal Singh, as he prepared to "report
forthwith," in "full rig," to the local Commander. There was a strange
preoccupation in the old jeweler which baffled Hawke. Ram Lal only
humbly begged to have all his lengthened accounts with Madame Berthe
Louison arranged, and Alan Hawke, with a few words, calmed the
Mussulman's fears.

"I'll have it all attended to, to-morrow, when I look it over," said
the Major, hastening away to the Club. "Ram has been at the hashish, or
bhang, or the betel nut, or some of his recondite dissipations--perhaps
he has enjoyed an opium bout in the Zenana," mused the new appointee, as
he gayly "begged off" from a cloud of eager congratulations by
promising to "blow off" the whole Delhi Club. "Business first, pleasure
afterwards" said the resplendent Major Hawke, as he clattered away, a
handsome son of Mars, to report to General Willoughby.

Major Hawke was secretly delighted with his cordial reception. "Come to
me to-morrow at ten, Major," said the Commander, "I will have your first
instructions, but remember absolute secrecy. This is a very grave affair
to both of us--your coming employment."

"The tide of life is bearing me on, with a devilish rapidity, with
favoring gales," the Major reflected. But beyond the clouds veiling the
future he saw no farther shore.

In the dim watches of the night for a week past, Simpson, secretly
busied with preparing Hugh Johnstone's flitting, was perplexed at the
sound of shuffling feet and whispered voices in the master's rooms
opening into the splendid gardens. "Who the devil has he there? Some
woman!" mused the old veteran servant. Simpson had his own little
"private life" to wind up, and so he was charitably inclined. It was
his custom when all was still to slip away "to the quarter" where some
lingering cords were now slowly snapping one by one. The old servant
noted with surprise a dark form gliding on his trail in several of these
goings and comings. Being of a practical nature, the man who had faced
the mad rebels at Lucknow