"I trust that there will be no necessity at all for your efforts in any direction."
"Look here, Charlie," she said; "if that is the way you take my well-meant offers, I shall withdraw them." This she said in a tone of contempt.
"I think you are quite right to do so, Miss Ackworth. I do not think there is the most remote chance of your services being called into requisition."
"I don't know," she said; "somehow or other I have a sort of uneasy conviction that there is trouble brewing."
The lieutenant's face changed its expression instantly. "Have you any reason whatever for such an idea?" he asked, with a sharpness and directness differing widely from his usual manner.
"No, I cannot quite say that I have; still, there are sundry little things which might afford some foundation for it. To begin with, you know that thirty of the camp-followers went off a week ago. Why should they have done that? They are always well treated. There has been no grumbling among them, and yet, without a moment's notice they stole away, just before the gates were closed at night."
"Yes, Miss Ackworth, we discussed that matter among ourselves, and came to the conclusion that the men thought they wanted a change and had gone off to their villages."
"Yes, of course, it might have meant that. I heard you talking it over when you were sitting in the veranda outside our bungalow. I thought you were all very stupid, because you only seemed to have one idea between you. Why, I could have given you several reasons at least.
"The men all belong to the hill tribes, and, I have no doubt, had an inkling that an expedition was going to start, and so went to join their friends. They took, I heard, half a dozen rifles with them, which would certainly seem to show that they had no intention of returning here.
"Well, that is one solution. The other is that the raid that my father has gone out to punish is really a feint to get him to take the greater part of the garrison away, and during his absence to fall upon us tooth and nail."