When the invalid was sufficiently recovered to creep about with a stick, and his arm in a sling, he often sat in the west verandah beside the General, whose sunken wistful eyes untiringly surveyed his beloved India and who liked to have Mallender near him,—although they rarely spoke. One was living in the past, the other's mind,—still somewhat blurred,—was anxiously scanning the future. At last even Mrs. Beamish admitted that Mallender was strong enough to adventure a journey, and it had come as on a previous occasion, to his last day.
Sitting beside the old man, he was astonished to hear him ask Tom to take down his sword, and bring it to him;—it was of an obsolete pattern with a hacked and dented brass scabbard, and its former wearer gazed at it, with a face drawn with emotion, then he said:
"My father gave me this in the year of our Lord, Eighteen hundred and thirty-five. I was a lad then; it has seen its share of service, and never, I thank God, been disgraced. I value it, next to my family here, more than anything in the wide world." Reaching feebly forward, and laying it across the invalid's knees, he said, "See here, Mallender, I give it to you."
"To me, sir!" he exclaimed, in astonishment. "Oh, no—no. The sword must remain in the family as an heirloom, it should belong to Tom. You offer me a great honour, but——"
"But Tom is not a soldier," interrupted the General impatiently, "and he wishes it to go to you. Many and many a mile has that sword travelled, and clanked and jingled beside me," and the old man's head fell on his breast. "I'd like to know that at last, it will return to England,—and you will hang it up in your home, and now and then look at it, and think of the old, old soldier who wore it in India for fifty years." Suddenly his voice broke, and the hero of Lucknow, Aliwal, Gwalior and Jhansi, wept.
Even outlandish Wellunga boasted its own correspondent; a certain scribbling baboo, had a brother in the newspaper office of a little rag in Madras, and now and then at long intervals supplied him with a par. or two of fashionable intelligence.
About five weeks after Mallender had reached Tom Beamish's coffee estate, the following appeared in the said little rag.
"Fearful panic occurred here lately on the occasion of a most alarming affair. A terrible man-eating horse, value Rs. 2000, the property of our honourable Mr. Rakar, broke loose, and all was terror and screams; he chased the Arab ridden by our beautiful Miss Beamish, and would have torn them limb from limb, but a young mister rode between, and accepted the rage of the wild beast, who knocked him and horse into a pitch dark nullah, and there devoured them. The young man saved the lady's life, and was taken up dead,—but breathing. His name is G. Mallender, and it is said, that he comes from England."