Nobody seemed to have any tents when they left the station for the districts, nor to take any bedding when they went on tour or up-country.

A queer, foreign land.
But Monksmead was a most magnificent "bungalow" standing in a truly beautiful "compound"-- wherein the very _bhistis_[12] and _mallis_ were European and appeared to be second-class sahibs.
Marvellous was the interior of the bungalow with its countless rooms and mountainous stair-cases (on the wall of one of which hung _the Sword_ which he had never seen but instantly recognized) and its army of white servants headed by the white butler (so like the Chaplain of Bimariabad in grave respectability and solemn pompousness) and its extraordinary white "ayahs" or maids, and silver-haired Mrs.Pont, called the "house-keeper".

Was she a _pukka_ Mem-Sahib or a _nowker_[13] or what?
And how did she "keep" the house?
A wonderful place--but far and away the most thrilling and delightful of its wonders was the little white girl, Lucille--Damocles' first experience of the charming genus.
The boy never forgot his first meeting with Lucille.
On his arrival at Monksmead he had been "vetted," as he expressed it, by the Burra-Sahib, the General; and then taken to an attractive place called "the school-room" and there had found Lucille....
"Hullo! Boy," had been her greeting.

"What's your name ?" He had attentively scrutinized a small white-clad, blue-sashed maiden, with curling chestnut hair, well-opened hazel eyes, decided chin, Greek mouth and aristocratic cheek-bones.

A maiden with a look of blood and breed about her.