The Keepers of the King's Peace. Wallace Edgar
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night, and there was nothing in his attitude suggestive of the deepest respect and the profoundest regard for that paragraph of King's Regulations which imposes upon the junior officer a becoming attitude of humility in the presence of his superior officer.
"How is your head, Bones?" asked Hamilton, after the parade had been dismissed.
"Thank you, sir," said Bones bitterly—though why he should be bitter at the kindly inquiry only he knew—"thank you, sir, it is about the same. My temperature is—or was—up to one hundred and four, and I have been delirious. I wouldn't like to say, dear old—sir, that I'm not nearly delirious now."
"Come up to tiffin," invited Hamilton.
Bones saluted—a sure preliminary to a dramatic oration.
"Sir," he said firmly, "you've always been a jolly old officer to me before this contretemps wrecked my young life—but I shall never be quite the same man again, sir."
"Don't be an ass," begged Hamilton.
"Revile me, sir," said Bones dismally; "give me a dangerous mission, one of those jolly old adventures where a feller takes his life in one hand, his revolver in the other, but don't ask me–"
"My sister wants to see you," said Hamilton, cutting short the flow of eloquence.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Bones hollowly, and strode into his hut.
"And what I'm going to do with him, Heaven knows," groaned Hamilton at tiffin. "The fact is, Pat, your arrival on the scene has thoroughly demoralized him."
The girl folded her serviette and walked to the window, and stood looking out over the yellow stretch of the deserted parade-ground.
"I'm going to call on Bones," she said suddenly.
"Poor Bones!" murmured Sanders.
"That's very rude!" She took down her solar helmet from the peg behind the door and adjusted it carefully. Then she stepped through the open door, whistling cheerfully.
"I hope you don't mind, sir," apologized Hamilton, "but we've never succeeded in stopping her habit of whistling."
Sanders laughed.
"It would be strange if she didn't whistle," he said cryptically.
Bones was lying on his back, his hands behind his head. A half-emptied tin of biscuits, no less than the remnants of a box of chocolates, indicated that anchorite as he was determined to be, his austerity did not run in the direction of starvation.
His mind was greatly occupied by a cinematograph procession of melancholy pictures. Perhaps he would go away, far, far, into the interior. Even into the territory of the great king where a man's life is worth about five cents net. And as day by day passed and no news came of him—as how could it when his habitation was marked by a cairn of stones?—she would grow anxious and unhappy. And presently messengers would come bringing her a few poor trinkets he had bequeathed to her—a wrist-watch, a broken sword, a silver cigarette-case dented with the arrow that slew him—and she would weep silently in the loneliness of her room.
And perhaps he would find strength to send a few scrawled words asking for her pardon, and the tears would well up in her beautiful grey eyes—as they were already welling in Bones's eyes at the picture he drew—and she would know—all.
"Phweet!"
Or else, maybe he would be stricken down with fever, and she would want to come and nurse him, but he would refuse.
"Tell her," he would say weakly, but oh, so bravely, "tell her … I ask only … her pardon."
"Phweet!"
Bones heard the second whistle. It came from the open window immediately above his head. A song bird was a rare visitor to these parts, but he was too lazy and too absorbed to look up.
Perhaps (he resumed) she would never see him again, never know the deep sense of injustice....
"Phwee—et!"
It was clearer and more emphatic, and he half turned his head to look–
He was on his feet in a second, his hand raised to his damp forehead, for leaning on the window sill, her lips pursed for yet another whistle, was the lady of his thoughts.
She met his eyes sternly.
"Come outside—misery!" she said, and Bones gasped and obeyed.
"What do you mean," she demanded, "by sulking in your wretched little hut when you ought to be crawling about on your hands and knees begging my pardon?"
Bones said nothing.
"Bones," said this outrageous girl, shaking her head reprovingly, "you want a jolly good slapping!"
Bones extended his bony wrist.
"Slap!" he said defiantly.
He had hardly issued the challenge when a very firm young palm, driven by an arm toughened by a long acquaintance with the royal and ancient game, came "Smack!" and Bones winced.
"Play the game, dear old Miss Hamilton," he said, rubbing his wrist.
"Play the game yourself, dear old Bones," she mimicked him. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself–"
"Let bygones be bygones, jolly old Miss Hamilton," begged Bones magnanimously. "And now that I see you're a sport, put it there, if it weighs a ton."
And he held out his nobbly hand and caught the girl's in a grip that made her grimace.
Five minutes later he was walking her round the married quarters of his Houssas, telling her the story of his earliest love affair. She was an excellent listener, and seldom interrupted him save to ask if there was any insanity in his family, or whether the girl was short-sighted; in fact, as Bones afterwards said, it might have been Hamilton himself.
"What on earth are they finding to talk about?" wondered Sanders, watching the confidences from the depths of a big cane chair on the verandah.
"Bones," replied Hamilton lazily, "is telling her the story of his life and how he saved the territories from rebellion. He's also begging her not to breathe a word of this to me for fear of hurting my feelings."
At that precise moment Bones was winding up a most immodest recital of his accomplishments with a less immodest footnote.
"Of course, dear old Miss Hamilton," he was saying, lowering his voice, "I shouldn't like a word of this to come to your jolly old brother's ears. He's an awfully good sort, but naturally in competition with an agile mind like mine, understanding the native as I do, he hasn't an earthly–"
"Why don't you write the story of your adventures?" she asked innocently. "It would sell like hot cakes."
Bones choked with gratification.
"Precisely my idea—oh, what a mind you've got! What a pity it doesn't run in the family! I'll tell you a precious secret—not a word to anybody—honest?"
"Honest," she affirmed.
Bones looked round.
"It's practically ready for the publisher," he whispered, and stepped back to observe the effect of his words.
She shook her head in admiration, her eyes were dancing with delight, and Bones realized that here at last he had met a kindred soul.
"It must be awfully interesting to write books," she sighed. "I've tried—but I can never invent anything."
"Of course, in my case–" corrected Bones.
"I suppose you just sit down with a pen in your hand and imagine all sorts of things," she mused, directing her feet to the Residency.
"This is the story of my life," explained Bones earnestly. "Not fiction … but all sorts of adventures that actually happened."
"To whom?" she asked.
"To me," claimed Bones, louder than was necessary.
"Oh!" she said.
"Don't start 'Oh-ing,'" said Bones in a huff. "If you and I are going to be good friends, dear old Miss Hamilton, don't say 'Oh!'"
"Don't