As I finish this sentence I shall put my revolver in my mouth and seek
Justice or Peace….
* * * * *
"Bad luck," murmured Mr. Robin Ross-Ellison, "that was the man of all men for me! A gentleman, wishful to die…. That is the sort that does things when swords are out and bullets fly. Seeks a gory grave and gets a V.C. instead. He and Mike Malet-Marsac and I would have put a polish on the new Gungapur Fusiliers…. Rough luck…."
He was greatly disappointed, for his experiences in the bazaars, market-places, secret-meeting houses, and the bowers of Hearts' Delights,—the Rialtos of Gungapur (he disguised, now as an Afghan horse-dealer, now as a sepoy, now as a Pathan money-lender, again as a gold-braided, velvet waistcoated, swaggering swashbuckler from the Border)—his experiences were disquieting, were such as to make him push on preparations, perfect plans, and work feverishly at the "polishing" of his re-organized Corps.
Also the reports of his familiar, a Somali yclept Moussa Isa, were disquieting, disturbing to a lover of the Empire who foresaw the Empire at war in Europe.
Moussa Isa also knew that there was talk among Pathan horse-dealers and budmashes of the coming of one Ilderim the Weeper, a mullah of great influence and renown, and talk, moreover, among men of other race, of a Great Conspiracy.
Moussa was bidden to take service as a mill-coolie in one of Colonel Dearman's mills, and to report on the views and attitude of the thousands who laboured therein. This he did and there learnt many interesting facts.
§ 4. MR. AND MRS. CORNELIUS GOSLING-GREEN.
It was Sunday—and therefore John Bruce, the Engineering College Professor, was exceptionally busy. On a-week-day he only had to deliver his carefully prepared lectures, interview students, read and return essays, take the chair at meetings of college societies, coach one or two "specialists," superintend the games on the college gymkhana ground, interview seekers after truth and perverters of the same, write letters on various matters of college business, visit the hostel, set question papers and correct answers, attend common-room meetings, write articles for the college magazine and papers for the Scientific, Philosophical, Shakespearean, Mathematical, Debating, Literary, Historical, Students', Old Boys', or some other "union" and, if God willed, get a little exercise and private study at his beloved "subject" and invention, before preparing for the morrow.
On Sundays, the thousand and one things crowded out of the programme were to be cleared up, his home mail was to be written, and then arrears of work had to be attacked.