'I don't like it at all,' replied Colville; 'besides, I have been in India before, and you forget, colonel, that this is not India, but rather beyond it.'
'True, I am not likely to forget that, when the rocks are bristling with Afghan juzails! But, if you don't like it, what the deuce brought you out now?'
'To have a new sensation, to see a little more of the world again,' said Colville, evasively, as he was not disposed to tell his thoughtless listeners—some four or five officers—assembled for tiffin (i.e., lunch) about his romance, and the temporary loss of Mary Wellwood.
'A new sensation!' exclaimed Algy Redhaven, a handsome young captain of the 10th Hussars, who had just entered the bungalow; 'you are likely to have it soon enough. Have you heard the news that has just come in from the front, colonel?' he added to Spatterdash.
'No—what the devil is up?' growled the old field-officer.
'Fresh complications are likely at Cabul—the Ameer Shere Ali has gone to visit the Russian general at Tashkend.'
'Whew!' whistled old Spatterdash; 'that will likely precipitate matters. I always thought the invasion of British India by Russia would be as practicable a few years hence as that of Italy by Austria, and now, by Jove, we seem close upon it.'
And since the date we write of the Russians have pushed on to Merv in Turkomania!
The group of officers who were invited to the colonel's table were all happy and heedless young fellows belonging to Sir Samuel Browne's column, and high in anticipation of a protracted 'shindy' with the Afghans, as a force was being concentrated at Jellalabad.
A couple were on the staff, like Colville; one—Redhaven—belonged to the Royal Hussars; two others to a native infantry regiment; all were somewhat airily attired, and, till tiffin made its appearance, all were smoking cheroots so industriously that clouds of their pale smoke curled among the rough rafters and straw roof of the bungalow.