Terrington gave a practical shape to his forebodings as soon as the Commissioner and his escort started for the Durbar.
The entire force was under arms; the Residency guard was trebled; sappers were stationed in every room to break open the loopholes; others waited with discs of guncotton to blow away the trees which masked the polo ground; and the final connexions were made with the mine which was to overthrow the courtyard wall.
Appearances were kept up by an attenuated fatigue party, which was as markedly visible about the place as the rest of the garrison was not.
Terrington, who had changed for polo, also made a peacefully indifferent figure as he strolled across to the mess-room and round the Residency garden, with a loose coat drawn over his riding-shirt, whose blue and silver showed in the scarf about his throat.
He had returned to his orderly-room in the Fort, when news of the tragedy which was to wring from England a growl of vengeance was brought to the sentries at the Residency gate by the handful of blood-smeared horsemen who swept through it with broken and clotted lances and a crimson lather on their horses' flanks.
Hussain Shah was holding Langford, mortally hurt, in the saddle, his huge figure swinging limply to and fro, and more than half that remnant of the escort reeled as they drew rein before the Residency door.
Terrington was not the first to hear of the disaster, but he heard it in the most dramatic fashion; from Mrs. Chantry's lips.
She had torn across the compound as the Lancers came to a blundering halt before the mess-room entrance, and dashed breathless into the orderly room, waiting no confirmation of the story that was told by their plight.
She caught at her side, clutching with the other hand at the table, and for an instant panted, speechless, her face white as jasmine, above a big bow of creamy lace.
Then, with a hard gasp of breath: