CHAPTER VIII.
[THE SIRKAR'S SALT.]
Have I not eaten the Sirkar's salt?
Wherefore then shall I tell a lie?
Wherefore lie? Nay, mine oath is true,
True as above us spreads the sky.
We lost, but a traitor hand was there,
And the soldier fell in the liar's snare.
Lays of the Punjab.
Loo-ga-lay said it was only a mistake, but the childlike innocence of his face, his oaths and protestations, the twenty hired witnesses he brought to prove him guiltless availed him not, and the richly deserved three months' "rigorous" was duly awarded. With the giving of this sentence, the details of which are of no account, the official programme of the day was over, and Peregrine free from office routine until Monday morning. He was to see Ruys this afternoon, and her face appeared to flit before him and his heart bowed down to the vision; but he set his teeth and put away the thoughts that came whether he would or not. Was he not measuring the strength of his soul or will, as he would have called it, against the strength of his passion? He was going to pit the ideal against the real, and to his strong young heart the struggle could have but one issue. He knew--none better--that he was running a desperate risk, but there was no doubt in his mind that the danger had to be faced, and there was a curious pleasure in facing the danger. And all this war, which was to make or mar him, was to be silently fought out in the drawing-room of a very pretty woman. He found her there, looking the picture of repose, her little dog coiled snugly at her feet, and a yellow-backed novel before her. She put the book down with a smile as he came in, and held out her hand.