This was done, the handsome tulwar being suspended from a nail facing the window of their sitting-room, opening out on to a terrace-like veranda, the sleeping-chambers of the two officers being on either side.
“Safe enough there,” said Wyatt, standing back to admire the handsome weapon.
“Quite,” replied Dick; “not much chance for any one to get by the sentries.”
That evening closed in thick and dark, with a peculiar murkiness and heat in the air. It was as if the clouds had sunk low down towards the earth, and a strange feeling of oppression troubled the occupants of the room, which they shared in common.
“Wonder how that lamp managed to get here,” said Wyatt as he lay back in a cane chair smoking, and as he moved slightly when he spoke the chair creaked in a peculiar way.
Dick turned himself lazily to stare at the old-fashioned sperm-oil lamp, with its ground-glass globe, and watched some of the many moths and flies, attracted by the light, commit suicide before he replied slowly:
“Present for the old Rajah, perhaps, sent up from Calcutta.”
“Likely enough,” growled Wyatt; “and I wish the new Rajah had sent it back before we came. Abominable thing. It’s never properly trimmed, and the oil they use doesn’t suit it, so that it always smells. And look at that great moth.—Go it, stupid! There, I thought so. There you are, singed and roasted, and you nearly put out the light. Now, why couldn’t that idiotic thing have contented itself with flying about in the soft darkness, instead of diving down that hot chimney on to the flame?”
“Horribly tiresome,” yawned Dick. “I’d shut the window, only the place would be so unbearably hot.”
“Never mind; shut it, and open the bedroom doors. Anything’s better than having the light put out.”
Dick rose slowly and did as he was told before taking off the lump globe and chimney to clear the lamp-wick, and then replacing them and returning to his seat.
As the lamp was turned down for retrimming, the faint flickering of lightning could be seen, and a distant muttering sound broke the silence.
“Let it come,” said Wyatt; “make it cooler, and be a bit of a change.”
“It must be tremendous up in the mountains.”
“Let it be tremendous up in the mountains, Dicky. There’s plenty of room for it to rumble round there, and if it splinters a few crags it will do no harm.”