Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/93

Rh "My dear fellow, they are not worth making a fuss about. I suppose if you were to pick up an old pistol, or a grass-cutter's pony to replace the one you lost, you wouldn't feel that you had done the rest of the army out of their rights."

"But that is different. These jewels may be very valuable."

"Not much in that way, I fancy; but they are pretty little things, I admit. Look here," continued Kirke, taking the box out of his breast-pocket and holding it out towards Yorke — "look here, Yorke; you would like to take your choice, wouldn't you? Which will you have?" And Kirke's manner was such that it could not be said he was not speaking in jest, although it seemed as if he would certainly like to be taken at his word.

But Yorke, looking straight before him over his horse's head, merely waved away the offer, and said, "You are joking, colonel, of course; I take it for granted that you intend to hand the jewels over to the prize-agent."

"Oh, of course," replied the other, "I was only joking;" but he could not conceal from his manner that he felt as if he had sustained a rebuff; and the silence which followed as they rode along, was a little awkward on both sides.

Both officers, however, had plenty of work to occupy their attention, and Yorke had ceased to think about the matter when, a few weeks later, it was brought to his recollection.

He was detached from headquarters with one squadron of the regiment, at a station which had lately been reoccupied by the civil officers of government. The last embers of the great conflagration were now extinguished, and the detachment was peacefully encamped on an open space before the town, expecting orders to go into summer quarters. One evening Yorke was sauntering through the camp inspecting the horses picketed in two lines before the troopers' tents, while the ressaldar Futteh Khan attended him. The latter was dressed in his loose native garments, both of them being off duty and the inspection purely non-official, when Yorke noticed in his girdle the jewelled dagger which had been taken from the rebel in the palanquin.

"That is a handsome dagger," said Yorke in Hindustani, "and if those jewels are real it must be worth something."

"Ah, sahib, these little stones are mere trifles," replied the ressaldar; "it was the colonel sahib who carried off the loot. They say that the man whom we found in the palkee was the raja's dewân, and that the jewels were worth a lakh of rupees."

"So much the better," replied Yorke; "we shall all get the larger share when the prize-money comes to be distributed."

"So the colonel sahib had actually made them over to the prize-agent?" asked the man, respectfully enough, yet as if surprised to hear it; and the conversation arousing an uneasy feeling in Yorke's mind, he took the opportunity of a messenger going to regimental headquarters next day to ask Kirke about it.

"I take it for granted," he said at the end of a letter written about other matters — "that you have made over the jewels to the prize-agent as you said you intended to do; but the men in the regiment appear to be talking about the thing, and to suppose that they were worth far more than their real value; while I infer from Futteh Khan's manner that he thinks he ought to have had a share. The capture havnng been a joint one, it is perhaps now a little unfortunate that the things were not publicly given up, so that the men might have been without any ground for suspicion that we had taken any benefit by it. It would be a great satisfaction to hear from you that the transfer has been actually made. Pray excuse my troubling you about the matter." To which Kirke replied by the following postscript in his letter sent back by the messenger: "take your mind easy about the jewels, which were duly handed over to the proper party. They turned out to be trumpery things."

The great war having come to an end at last, and it being now the height of the hot season, the field force to which Kirke's Horse was attached was broken up, and the different regiments composing it, calling in their detachments, marched off to their respective summer quarters. Mustaphabad was the station allotted to Kirke's Horse, several hundred miles off, and not to be reached till long after the fierce Indian summer should have passed its greatest heat; but the men — veterans in campaigning, although young in years — set out on the long march in high spirits, for Mustaphabad was not far from the district in which the regiment was raised, and they might now expect to get furloughs to visit their homes. What strange chance is it, thought Yorke, which brings us back to the old eventful scenes? Can it be that the dream of my youth is really to be fulfilled, and that Olivia will be won to share my lot in that very place? a lot I just as I used to picture it, a humble 