And Redmond, smiling inscrutably into the deep-set, glittering eyes, answered as simply: "I will, Sergeant!"
He declined an offer. "Nemoyah! (No) thanks, I've had enough."
For some unaccountable reason, Slavin smiled also. His huge clamping right hand crushed George's, while the left described an arc heavenwards. Came a throaty gurgle, a careless swing of the arm, and—
"Be lay loike a warrior takin' his rist,
Wid his—
"I misrimimber th' tail-ind av ut," sighed Sergeant Slavin, "'Tis toime we turned in."
In silence they re-entered the detachment. Yorke, minus his moccasins, fur-coat and red-serge, lay stretched out upon his cot sleeping heavily, his flushed, reckless, high-bred face pillowed on one outflung arm. Above him, silent guardians of his rest, his grotesque mixture of prints gleamed duskily in the lamp-light.
Into Redmond's mind—sunk into a deep oblivion of dreamy, chaotic thought—came again Slavin's words:
"Shtudy thim picthures, bhoy! an', by an' large ye have th' man himsilf"
Soon, too, he slept; and into his fitful slumbers drifted a ridiculously disturbing dream. That of actually witnessing the terrible scene of the long-dead Indian Mutiny hero, Major Hodson, executing with his own hand the three princes of Oude.
Inshalla! it was done—there! there! against the cart, amidst the gorgeous setting of Indian sunset and gleaming minaret. "Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!" came a dying scream upon the last shot—the smoking carbine was jerked back to the "recover"—a moment the scarlet-turbaned, scarlet-sashed English officer gazed with ruthless satisfaction at his treacherous victims then, turning sharply, faced him.