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“Hang these examinations! They spoil the good men and make the bad ones worse. I’ll have no one up here who would sacrifice his real work to them. If you can’t keep your studies to the hot hours, when you young fellows think it’ll kill you to go out, better give them up. Your munshi must be a queer sort if he’s willing to work all day with you. Who is he, by the bye? Fazl-ul-Hacq?—not one of the regular Bab-us-Sahel munshis, surely? Next time you come in, make some excuse to bring him with you, and I’ll have a look at him. He never seems to be forthcoming when I hunt you up at Shah Nawaz, and when a man keeps out of sight in that way it doesn’t look well. You think he’s all right, I suppose?”

Now was Ferrers’ chance. With one effort he might break with his old life and throw off the Mirza’s yoke, exchanging his solitary indolence at Shah Nawaz for the incessant activity which was the portion of all who worked under Major Keeling’s own eye. But to do this he must confess to the man he disliked that he felt himself unfit for responsibility, and that he had practically betrayed the trust reposed in him. Moreover, not a man in the province but would believe he had been deprived of his command as a punishment. This thought was decisive, and he answered quickly—