"The Governor has often been to parties and tiffins here. He says the prettiest woman in the regiment lived in this bungalow, with the whole station at her feet."
Some of the quarters were still standing, in spite of great chasms in their tiled roofs. Into one of these, Tara led the way, explaining:
"We call this 'Lucia's Bungalow,' for here on this window-frame is carved—'Lucia' and a heart. See?"
Yes, there it was, still distinctly legible, inscribed by a firm male hand.
"Her grave is in the cemetery," added the girl. "She was only twenty, I put flowers on it every Sunday, and many on others too—but they seem all asking me to care for them—poor forgotten people!"
"Now let us go on to the barracks," urged Tom, the ever-restless, leading the way from Lucia's Bungalow. "The General joined the regiment there seventy-seven years ago. They say that Government was going to pull the place down, only it would cost too much money, and they have no use for the stone,—there being no railway."
"Can you believe that this was once full of soldiers?" enquired Tara, as they entered and gazed upon a vast open square. The building was more of a fortress than barracks, having been erected in the days when the country was overrun by Mysorians and Mahrattas. The outer walls were pierced for guns, the windows and verandahs faced inwards to the parade-ground—now overgrown with jungle, and coarse yellow grass, where grazed a couple of lethargic buffaloes. Part of the men's quarters were hopelessly dilapidated, but other portions still exhibited time-defying teak stairs, heavy teakwood doors, and solid chunam pillars.
"It's pretty safe, shall we go up?" suggested Tom, and he led the way along its echoing upper verandahs—from whence they peered into forlorn, bat-haunted barrack-rooms—still exhibiting the marks of where punkahs had once hung. Down below in the square, there was now no sound of voices, tramping feet, or bugle calls, nothing but a steady "crop, crop" of the buffaloes, and from the distant city the faint complacent throbbing of a tom-tom.
Tom and Tara were engaged in a prolonged altercation on the subject of "manners," the two were frequently at loggerheads,—though they never actually quarrelled—she accused him of rudely pushing up the stairs before her, whilst he apostrophised her as "a silly ass." Meanwhile, Mallender stood somewhat apart, gazing through a broken aperture, over the sun-steeped outlook, with its rose-tinted plains, and shadowy blue horizon. As he gazed, he began faintly to realise the fascination of this old mysterious land, with its subtle appeal, that baffles all attempts at description. His thoughts instinctively turned to the General's tales of camps, and combats, marches and victories; to "old-forgotten, far-off things, and battles long ago"; through the evening's golden haze his mind's eye seemed to behold the approach of an imposing train of war elephants, careering horsemen, streaming standards, and ponderous guns. The vision was abruptly dispelled by a vigorous thump on the back.
"I say! You seem to be moonstruck or something," exclaimed Tom. "If we are to play tennis, we must look sharp. It's past four o'clock, and the Beaufort girls will be coming to fetch us with ropes and lanterns."