"It's true! Think of it! Peace and goodwill? Isn't the whole station at daggers-drawing because one lady said another wasn't the best-dressed woman in India? Isn't your regiment, Colonel, ready to murder you? Then that camp, right in the middle of us Christians, with how many prisoners eating their hearts out? And Vile John--as Boy has been taught to call him--half mad in thinking of his children who have died. Oh, I know it is all inevitable--but think, just think of him wandering about this Christmas Eve, liable to be shot at sight. There's a Santa Claus for you!"
Her voice had risen, her fingers had closed tremblingly on the sprig of poinsettia she had fastened in her breast. It showed against the white laces of her dress like a clutching scarlet hand.
Colonel Gould shrugged his shoulders uneasily. "Don't forget Kunder in the picture of peace and goodwill!--Kunder with his 'fings as kills'; for the matter of that don't forget _you_ and _me_, and the rest of us! The Decalogue is in danger on Christmas Eve as always--perhaps more so."
"I don't believe it," exclaimed Boy's mother in sudden pitiful emotion. "Don't believe him, Muriel! Wait and see! Why, even that storm brewing"--as she spoke a shivering seam of lightning shot slanting across the purple pall behind the dusty trees--"only means the Christmas rains. How welcome they will be after this endless drought! They will perhaps save millions of lives--"
"A doubtful message of peace," put in the Colonel, drily. "But hadn't we better start? or we shan't have time for the _dhatura_."
"You haven't time," said Boy's mother, sharply. "You must be back by eight, Muriel, for we have to be at the camp by nine. Ayah will bring Boy down ready dressed when we want him--so please don't be late."
This thing which she saw looming as plainly as she saw that storm in the sky, should not be if she could help it. They were too good, both the man and the woman, for that sort of ruin.
She shivered as she watched the dogcart drive off. Truly there were storms ahead! And that thought of Viljeon--childless, half-distraught--wandering about, liable to be shot like a wild beast, made her fear for what might happen ere Christmas dawned.
The verandah darkened silently after she left it. Every now and again a puff of wind rattled the dry pods of the _sirus_ trees, making them give out a faint crackle like that of a scaled viper coiled watchfully in a corner.