It was at Rosebank that the three brides were assembled for a sweet review after the quiet double marriage at Edgemere, which caused General Wragge’s rugged face to wreathe in honest smiles of delight.
And there was no rice left in the General’s military supplies, “when the bridal parties drove away in great state to the Stella.”
A curious congratulatory visit from Professor Alaric Hobbs led to the extending of an invitation by Captain Anstruther for the lanky American scientist to visit him in India.
“We owe you a debt of gratitude,” laughed Anstruther, “for you helped Hardwicke to his wife. She helped me to mine, and I will see that the Indian Government gives you an official safe conduct to Thibet, where you can see the real line of the Dalai-lamas, and I’ll furnish you a veritable ‘Moonshee’ free of charge. You shall be the very ‘Moses’ of Yankee investigators! You deserve it!”
“Now you talk horse sense,” said the alert Yankee. “I’m going out to ‘square things’ with old Andrew Fraser’s son. Don’t ever kick a man when he’s down! The old boy has had a very ‘rough deal.’ That ‘fake’ about Thibet nearly broke him up. And I’ve a commission from the Buggin’s Literary Syndicate, of Chicago, to ‘write up India.’ I shall take a hack at Egypt on my way home, and perhaps ride over to Persia, then get into Merv and Tashkend, and come back by Astrakhan into ‘darkest’ Russia, and return home. I shall also write some spicy letters to the Chicago Howler and the New York Whorl. I tell you, Cap,” said Alaric Hobbes, slapping Anstruther familiarly on the back, “you three military men have certainly fitted yourselves out with tiptop wives! I am going to make a pretty good money haul myself on this trip. I’ll look you up later in Calcutta. Would like to see the Viceroy. He was a ‘brick’ when he was Governor-General of Canada. So I’ll get young Douglas Fraser fixed up all in good trim, and when I get home and have published my books, settle down and marry a little woman I’ve had my eye on for some time. I will go in for a family life, you bet!”
“Look out that you don’t lose her,” laughed Hardwicke.
“I will not get left, you bet!” cried Hobbes. “Now, I’m going to vamoose the ranch. I think that I may have killed one or two of that gang, and I don’t fancy the ‘monotonous regularity’ and ‘salubrious hygiene’ of your English prisons.”
And so, “his feet were beautiful on the mountains,” as he went out on his queer life pathway.
After the week of quiet at Rosebank, Captain Eric Murray was hugely delighted to receive his orders to take charge of all Anstruther’s confidential work, in England, until the Viceroy should be pleased to otherwise direct. “I think that a garrison life here, with Miss Mildred as commander, will just suit you and Madame Flossie?” laughed the kindly conspiring aide-de-camp, anxious to be away on his road to Jitomir, “personally conducted” by the brilliant Alixe.
The Horse Guards were “pleased to intimate” that Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, should be allowed “such length of leave” as he chose to apply for, and a secret compliment upon his “gift to the Crown” of the recovered property was supplemented by a request to name any future station “agreeable at present” to the young Benedict. And the solicitors had now deftly arranged the complete machinery of the care of the great estate, until the orphan claimed her own.