“No, indeed. My regiment is at Quetta, but I was reared on the records of Lucknow. My grandmother went through the whole of the siege, and my grandfather was with the Second Relief. It must have agreed with their health, for they were both out here two years since, and I went over the Mutiny ground with them.”
“How interesting! Was that how they met?”
“No. They were engaged just before the Residency was invested. It is an awfully interesting yarn, and I should like some day to have a chance of telling it to you. There is a native princess in it, and a pearl necklace, which is worth quite a lot of money, and is believed to have been stolen by a sepoy before my grandfather obtained it, quite by accident. And the old chap—he was quite a young chap then, you know—had a remarkable native servant who did so well at the Mutiny that he became a nawab or something of the sort. Really, the whole thing is more like a book than a chapter of real life.”
“I had a grandmother in the Mutiny,” said the girl, “but she had such a sad experience that she seldom mentioned it. Her maiden name was Keene, and her father was killed at Fattehpore—”
“Keene! Did she ever speak of a man named Malcolm, who saved her and her sister?”
“Oh, yes! You don’t mean to say—”
“Yes, really, I’m his grandson. Now, isn’t that the queerest thing? Just imagine the odds against my meeting you here under such conditions? Please tell me your name, and you’ll let me call, won’t you?”
The girl was somewhat breathless. Young Malcolm was looking at her as though he felt that a special dispensation of Providence had brought them together.
“I am sure my mother will be glad to meet you and hear all about those old days at Lucknow,” she said shyly.