"I wish we had but the third of those thirty thousand here to help us out of this beastly place where it has pleased her Majesty we should set up our tent-poles," said Waller. "I expect Burgoyne also to-night, and he will be sure to bring us the last news from the city, as he has accompanied Brigadier Shelton to another conference with those children of the prophet."
"Another conference?" said Denzil.
"Yes, by Jove! risky and plucky, is it not?"
"Awfully so, after what has happened to poor Burnes, Macnaghten, and the rest."
"But needs must, for we cannot choose now."
For on this evening fresh and, as the event proved, nearly final negotiations had been opened between the General and Ackbar Khan, to whom he had sent Brigadier Shelton, Major Pottinger, and Burgoyne. Thus the ladies in camp and all the white women, whose persons had been demanded as hostages, were in no ordinary state of anxiety to learn the result.
Polwhele and Denzil were betimes in Waller's quarters, where two officers of the 37th and two of the 54th had dropped in. Trevelyan had not arrived, and Denzil in fancy saw him hanging over the chair of Rose, as he had seen him last. He was nervously jealous, somewhat afraid of his own temper, and hoped the night should pass without an unseemly quarrel. He was in wretched spirits, for Sybil's letter and her future weighed upon his mind. This air of gloom was unheeded by his companions. What was the demise, so far away, too, of one whose face they never saw, to them, who were daily and hourly front to front with death himself? Yet he strove to join in their conversation, while cigars were lit and Waller's jar of wine passed briskly to and fro, and the cold round, with flour chupatties, was in great request.
"As things go now," said the host, who lounged on a couple of bullock-trunks, "we are thankful to get even the leg of a wild sheep—a regular Persian doomba, with a tail a foot broad, and can only think regretfully of choice entrées, of pâtés de foie gras from beautiful Strasburg, of boned larks and truffled turkeys of Paris—croquettes, côtelettes, and kidneys stewed in Madeira, caviare from the Don, and ortolans from Lombardy, and a thousand other nice little things we shall never see, till the cold white cliffs of the South Foreland are rising on our lee bow. Oh! soul of Lucullus and of the noble science of gastronomy!"
"Waller, you are irrepressible," said Polwhele. "Devereaux, how is the General? have you heard?"
"Trecarrel?" asked Denzil, colouring.