Jerry looked round thoughtfully. Beyond the lawns the cemetery gate showed dimly, with Budlu's white figure crouched beside it.
'Kill Budlu, or take him prisoner, I 'spect,' he replied gravely, ''cos the band, you know, might be loyal.'
At that moment it crashed into the opening bars of the Lancers with all the go and rhythm which the natives put into dance music.
'You're top!' came one voice; 'No! you are,' answered a second; 'Oh! do begin, some one!' protested another. So, with a laugh, a scramble, a confusion, a dozen or more of dancing feet trod the grass which had grown out of blood stains. But the confusion ended in order, so that the pink tarlatane was in its place to be twirled by Hodson's Horse, and join the clapping of hands which ended the figure.
There was something weird in the sight out there, with the flower-beds set with coloured lights, the Chinese lanterns swinging in the trees, and the shadowy pile of the Residency lying--more felt than seen--with its solitary tower and drooping flag.
'Inside! outside! Outside! inside!' came the reckless gay voices after a time.
In the far distance a fire balloon from some wedding in the city, sailed up into the sky above the trails of smoke rising from the torches which outlined the boundary of the Garden Mound. Budlu's figure, watching the graves of heroes, showed closer in, then the band busy with cornets and oboes, and the masquerading figures with that gleam of pink and white among them, watched by Chris as he stood half hidden in the shadow of the ruins.
'Outside! inside! Inside! outside!'
So, with another crash of the band, the endless circle of men and women caught at each other's hands as if in that touch lay all things necessary to salvation.
'Inside and outside,' echoed Jack Raymond grimly. 'Yes! Brian O'Lynn's breeches were comparatively sane. But we are all more or less mad to-night, my Lady Greensleeves. Upon my soul, Jerry, you, as the British Boy, are the only one in the place fit to carry on the British rule! so come along and have some supper, young man, before you go to bed. The champagne is A1--that's my department, Miss Drummond; it's all I'm fit for.'