After tea the two officers took their leave with many expressions of gratitude from the younger man to the girl for her kindness in arranging the beat for him. Hours afterwards, as they halted in the forest for a rest in the middle of the night, Colonel Dermot said:
"You told me once that you'd like a job like mine, Wargrave. Would you care for frontier political work here?"
"I'd love it, sir," exclaimed the subaltern enthusiastically. "Would it be possible to get it?"
"Well, I've been thinking for some time of applying to the Government of India for an assistant political officer who would help me and take over if I went on leave, but I'd want to train my own man and not merely accept any youngster who was pitchforked into the Department just because he had a father or an uncle with a pull at Simla. Now, if you like I'll apply for you, on condition that you'll work at Bhutanese and the frontier dialects. I'll teach them to you."
"I'd like nothing better, sir. I'm not bad at languages."
"Yes, I've noticed that your Hindustani is very good and idiomatic. I've been watching you and I like your manner with natives. One must be sympathetic, kind and just, but also firm with them. Well, I'll try you. The rainy season will be on us very soon, and then all outdoor work and sport will be impossible. One dare not go into the jungle--it's too full of malaria and blackwater fever. The planters and Forest Officers have to cage themselves in wire gauze 'mosquito houses.' During the rains you'll have plenty of time to work at the languages."
"Thank you very much, Colonel. I promise you I'll go at them hard."
"You'll have a fellow-student for part of the time. Miss Benson's coming to stay with us during the Monsoons for a bit; and she has asked me to teach her Bhutanese, too. She wants it, as she has to deal with Bhuttia woodcutters and hill folk generally. Well, that's fixed. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, sir," answered the subaltern, as he lay down on the pad and stared at the stars. He was overjoyed at Colonel Dermot's offer, and as he dropped asleep it was with a thrill of pleasure that he realised he would see something more of the girl who had been his companion that day.
The lightning spattered the heavens and tore the black sky into a thousand fragments, the thunder crashed in appalling peals of terrifying sound which echoed again and again from the invisible mountains. The rain fell in ropes of water that sent the brown, foam-flecked torrents surging full-fed down every gully and ravine in the mist-wrapped hills. The single, steep road of Ranga Duar was now the rocky bed of a racing flood inches deep that swirled and raged round Wargrave's high rubber boots as he waded up towards the Mess clad in an oilskin coat, off which the rain splashed. He was glad to arrive at the garden gate, turn in through it, climb the verandah steps, and reach his door. Here he flung aside his coat and kicked off the heavy boots.