Mactier's stoic Scotch features showed no surprise.
"Ay, sir," he said again, in a low voice, "'Tis what I've expected this lang time."
Trevelyan looked up from his packing, amused.
"You have—have you?"
"Is it the army, sir?" asked Mactier, doubtfully.
Trevelyan sat back on his heels.
"No," he said, briefly, not meeting Mactier's eyes, "it's the cholera."
The cap Mactier had been twirling dropped suddenly from his hand and he came a step forward. The long years in which Trevelyan had grown to be a man faded from Mactier's consciousness; the big retired officer of the Queen's service, was a boy again—the boy whom he had flung across his shoulder when he was wounded and brought home through the darkness of that long moorland night.
"Not the cholera, laddie! O, not the cholera!"
"That's just what it's going to be," said Trevelyan, wheeling around suddenly on his heel. "Where in thunder is that shirt?"