No More Learning

"I--I suppose so. By the way, how long do you think this war will last? "

"Days, weeks, or months. One can never tell. It may go on for years. "

"I wish I were going. "

"Good Heavens! You're the most unaccountable creature! Hasn't it
occurred to you that you're going to be married--thanks to me? "

"Of course, yes. I'm going to be married--so I am. Going to be married.
I'm awfully grateful to you. Haven't I told you that? "

"You might be going to be hanged by the look of you," said Torpenhow.
And the next day Torpenhow bade him good-bye and left him to the
loneliness he had so much desired.



CHAPTER XIV

Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He of the Faith spoke as master to slave;
Yet at the last, tho' the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the reiver,--
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He called upon Allah and died a believer. --Kizzilbashi.

"Beg your pardon, Mr. Heldar, but--but isn't nothin' going to happen? "
said Mr. Beeton.

"No! " Dick had just waked to another morning of blank despair and his
temper was of the shortest.

"'Tain't my regular business, 'o course, sir; and what I say is, 'Mind
your own business and let other people mind theirs;' but just before Mr.
Torpenhow went away he give me to understand, like, that you might be
moving into a house of your own, so to speak--a sort of house with rooms
upstairs and downstairs where you'd be better attended to, though I try
to act just by all our tenants. Don't I? "

"Ah! That must have been a mad-house. I shan't trouble you to take me
there yet. Get me my breakfast, please, and leave me alone.