The great beam-roofed mess room of the White Hussars was a sight to be
remembered. All the mess plate was on the long table--the same table
that had served up the bodies of five dead officers in a forgotten
fight long and long ago--the dingy, battered standards faced the door
of entrance, clumps of winter roses lay between the silver
candlesticks, the portraits of eminent officers deceased looked down
on their successors from between the heads of sambhur[12],
nilghai[13], maikhor, and, pride of all the mess, two grinning
snow-leopards that had cost Basset-Holmer four months' leave that he
might have spent in England instead of on the road to Thibet, and the
daily risk of his life on ledge, snowslide, and glassy grass slope.
The servants, in spotless white muslin and the crest of their
regiments on the brow of their turbans, waited behind their masters,
who were clad in the scarlet and gold of the White Hussars and the
cream and silver of the Lushkar Light Horse. Dirkovitch's dull green
uniform was the only dark spot at the board, but his big onyx eyes
made up for it. He was fraternizing effusively with the captain of the
Lushkar team, who was wondering how many of Dirkovitch's Cossacks his
own long, lathy down-countrymen could account for in a fair charge.
But one does not speak of these things openly.
The talk rose higher and higher, and the regimental band played
between the courses, as is the immemorial custom, till all tongues
ceased for a moment with the removal of the dinner slips and the First
Toast of Obligation, when the colonel, rising, said, "Mr.
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