subtlety, and a dash of perjury, ran through all
these suits, and rendered them rather puzzles for
a quick intelligence to resolve, than questions of
right or legality. He told, too, how dreary
and uncompanionable his life was; how unsolaced
by friendship, or even companionship; that the
climate was enervating, the scenery monotonous,
and the thermometer at a hundred and twenty
or a hundred and thirty degrees.

Yet Loyd could speak with some encouragement
about his prospects. He was receiving
eight hundred rupees a month, and hoped to
be promoted to some place, ending in Ghar
or Bad, with an advance of two hundred
more. He darkly hinted that the mutinous
spirit of certain regiments was said to be
extending, but he wrote this with all the reserve
of an official, and the fear that Aunt Grainger
might misquote him. Of course there were other
features in these letters—those hopes and fears,
and prayers and wishes, which lovers like to
write, almost as well as read, poetising to
themselves their own existence, and throwing a rose-
tint of romance over lives as lead-coloured as
may be. Of these I am not going to say
anything. It is a theme both too delicate and too
dull to touch on. I respect and I dread it.

I have less reserve with the correspondence of
another character of our tale, though certainly,
when written, it was not meant for publicity.
The letter of which I am about to make an
extract, and it can be but an extract, was written
about ten months after the departure of Calvert
for India, and, like his former ones, addressed
to his friend Drayton:

"At the hazard of repeating myself, if by
chance my former letters have reached you, I
state that I am in the service and pay of the Meer
Morad, of Ghurtpore, of whose doings the Times
correspondent will have told you something. I
have eight squadrons of cavalry and a half
battery of field-pieces—brass ten pounders—
with an English crown on their breech. We
are well armed, admirably mounted, and perfect
devils to fight. You saw what we did with the
detachment of the—th, and their sick convoy,
coming out of Allehbad. The only fellow that
escaped was the doctor, and I saved his life to
attach him to my own staff. He is an Irish
fellow, named Tobin, and comes from Tralee—If
there be such a place—and begs his friends there
not to say masses for him, for he is alive, and
drunk every evening. Do this, if not a bore.

"By good luck the Meer, my chief, quarrelled
with the king's party in Delhi, and we came
away in time to save being caught by Wilson,
who would have recognised me at once. By the
way, Baxter of the 30th was stupid enough to
say, 'Eh, Calvert, what the devil are you doing
amongst these niggers?' He was a prisoner
at the time, and, of course, I had to order him to
be shot for his imprudence. How he knew me
I cannot guess; my beard is down to my breast,
and I am turbaned and shawled in most approved
fashion. We are now simply marauding, cutting
off supplies, falling on weak detachments, and
doing a small retail business in murder wherever
we chance upon a station of civil servants. I
narrowly escaped being caught by a troop of the
9th Lancers, every man of whom knows me. I
went over, with six trusty fellows, to Astraghan,
where I learned that a certain Loyd was
stationed as government receiver. We got there
by night, burned his bungalow, shot him, and
then discovered he was not our man, but another
Loyd. Bradshaw came up with his troop. He
gave us an eight miles chase cross country, and,
knowing how the Ninth ride, I took them, over
some sharp mullahs, and the croppers they got
you'll scarcely see mentioned in the govern-
ment despatches. I fired three barrels of my
Yankee six-shooter at Brad, and I heard the
old beggar offer a thousand rupees for my head.
When he found he could not overtake us, and
sounded a halt, I screamed out, 'Threes about,
Bradshaw.' I'd give fifty pounds to hear him
tell the story at mess: 'Yes, sir, begad, sir,
in as good English, sir, as yours or mine, sir:
a fellow who had served the Queen, I'll swear.'

"For the moment, it is a mere mutiny, but it
will soon be a rebellion, and I don't conceal
from myself the danger of what I am doing,
as you, in all likelihood, will suspect. Not
dangers from the Queen's fellows—for they
shall never take me alive—but the dangers
I run from my present associates, and who,
of course, only half trust me..... Do you
remember old Commissary-General Yates—
J.C.V.R. Yates, the old ass used to write
himself? Well, amongst the other events of the
time, was the sack and 'loot ' of his house at
Cawnpore, and the capture of his pretty wife,
whom they brought in here a prisoner. I
expected to find the poor young creature terrified
almost out of her reason. Not a bit of it! She
was very angry with the fellows who robbed
her, and rated them roundly in choice Hindostanee,
telling one of the chiefs that his grandfather
was a scorched pig. Like a woman, and
a clever woman, too, though she recognised me
—I can almost swear that she did—she never
showed it, and we talked away all the evening,
and smoked our hookahs together in Oriental
guise. I gave her a pass next morning to
Calcutta, and saw her safe to the great trunk
road, giving her bearers as far as Behdarah.
She expressed herself as very grateful for my
attentions, and hoped at some future time—this
with a malicious twinkle of her grey eyes—to
show the 'Bahadoor' that she had not forgotten
them. So you see there are lights as well as
shadows in the life of a rebel."

I omit a portion here, and come to the
conclusion, which was evidently added in haste.

"'Up, and away!' is the order. We are off
to Bithoor. The Nana there—a staunch friend,
as it was thought, of British rule—has declared
for independence, and as there is plenty of go
in him, look out for something 'sensational.'
You wouldn't believe how, amidst all these
stirring scenes, I long for news—from what
people call home—of Rocksley, and Uncle
G., and the dear Soph; but more from that
villa beside the Italian lake. I'd give a canvas