"So you think we're looking for a lost kingdom, for Shangri-la?" Hiebermeyer said dubiously.

Rebecca shook her head and pointed at a small pottery statue of a Chinese warrior used as a paperweight on Jack's desk. "I've been thinking about that warrior."

"Uh-oh," Costas murmured. "I think we're in for a bit of Howard lateral thinking."

"You remember, Dad? You took me to the terracotta warriors exhibit at the British Museum in London the day after we flew in from New York." She turned to Aysha, suddenly breathless with excitement. "It's amazing. This guy, the First Emperor, had himself buried with everything, and I mean everything, under a mound the size of an Egyptian pyramid. They haven't even excavated it yet, can you believe it? There's only some ancient Chinese account of what it's like. There's a complete model of the world with mercury rivers, and even the heavens. The stars were jewels. And around the mound is what they've actually dug up, those warriors, all life-sized, thousands of them. It's the coolest thing you've ever seen."

Hiebermeyer began tapping his fingers. "What's your point, Rebecca?"

"I think it's all about immortality."

"That's what tombs are usually about," Hiebermeyer said, still tapping. "Equipping people for the afterlife."

"I don't mean the afterlife, I mean immortality," she said impatiently. "With the First Emperor, it was a complete obsession. You remember, Dad? In the exhibit it said he sent out a huge expedition in search of some fabled islands in the Pacific, the Isles of the Immortals. I asked whether you'd ever hunted for them."

Costas had a faraway look in his eyes, and began humming the Hawaii-Five-Oh tune. "I think I know where they are."

Rebecca's face crumpled with frustration. "You're not taking me seriously."

Jack looked at the statue. "The Chinese concept of the afterlife was close to the notion of immortality. You didn't go to heaven as we might understand it. Instead you remained in a kind of parallel universe, shadowing the real world. For the First Emperor of China, Shihuangdi, in the third century BC, the idea of heaven couldn't offer him more than he already had on earth. That's what the terracotta army was about, a copy of what he had at his command during his mortal life."

Rebecca was silent, looking down and fiddling with her fingers. Aysha leaned forward and looked at her. "I know what you're driving at. It's the allure of the east, isn't it? Do you think that's what Howard was after, when he disappeared? For some, it was remote fantasy valleys, Shangri-la, lost kingdoms, heaven on earth, places where you could live forever in earthly paradise. For others, it was where you might find the secret of immortality. Always it was the allure of eternal life, the greatest of treasures."

"But what about our Roman legionaries?" Costas said. "Is this what they were after too? I thought all they wanted was glorious death, to join their brothers-in-arms in Elysium."

"Out there, on the Silk Route heading east, they may have thought they were in that shadowland already, marching alongside their dead companions," Jack said. "But they were still alive, and we should never underestimate human desire. For those among them who still hankered after it, immortality might have seemed their only hope of ever making it back to Rome."

"How could they have known what lay ahead?" Aysha murmured. "What might have drawn them on?"

"I was getting to that," Rebecca said. "The First Emperor's tomb was at the end of the Silk Route, right? Full of treasure, just as it is today. If traders coming down from the Silk Route could tell the author of the Periplus about legionaries escaping from Parthia and heading east, then traders could also have told the legionaries about the fabled tomb of the First Emperor. Maybe a trader told them the story in the hope they'd spare his life."

"Maybe we're being too mystical about this," Costas said, rubbing his stubble.

"What do you mean?" Rebecca said.

"Maybe you have the right idea, but it wasn't some mystical allure. Just good old-fashioned treasure."

"Dad says you're wrong about him, he's an archaeologist, not a treasure hunter."

"When I see an elephant, I call it an elephant." Costas stood up. "We need to get to the Zodiac. And I wasn't being flippant. Hawaii is paradise. The west sh.o.r.e of Kaua'i, you know? There's a beautiful beach with some shady palms just beyond Ha.n.a.lei, and the perfect little bar."

"Dad says you're a beach b.u.m," Rebecca said.

"Now you know why I have to go."

Jack turned to Rebecca. "Keep on reading John Howard's diary. There might be more in it I've missed. And pretty good thinking, by the way. We might just sign you up. All you have to do now is learn to dive."

"It's a done deal, Jack," Costas said. "I'm taking her out from Kaua'i next week."

"She might not want to, of course," Jack said. "She might want to learn to fly helicopters instead."

"Oh, I'll do anything for Uncle Costas," Rebecca said, waving a diving textbook at them as she followed Hiebermeyer and Aysha out of the door.

Jack turned to Costas, his expression serious. "I'm dog-tired, but I'm looking forward to this." He jerked his head toward the pile of khaki clothes and jungle boots beside his bed. A shoulder strap and holster lay on top, the b.u.t.t of his Beretta 92 automatic poking out. "It's been a while since I've worn that."

"Too long, Jack. We don't want to lose the edge."

Jack was suddenly exhilarated. It had been an extraordinary twenty-four hours since he had first seen the shards with the text of the Periplus, and he was still reeling. They had begun to fathom out a story from the past, a lattice of possibilities and connections. Already he had begun to see images, the first few pictures in his mind that told him his instincts were right. Gnarled, weatherbeaten faces - Roman faces - the sheen of sunlight off a blood-soaked blade, swirling snow, then something else, the image of a warrior, something he could not shake from his mind. He turned and looked at the pictures above the sea chest, the faded images of the British officer, of his wife and child. Jack felt as if he were about to walk into that image and join his ancestor on his foray into the darkness, to a place Jack had yearned to know all his adult life. He took a deep breath, picked up the holster and looked at Costas. "Good to go?"

"Good to go."

G.o.davari River, India, 20 August 1879 Lieutenant John Howard, Royal Engineers, took off his pith helmet and wiped his brow. The sun was bearing down directly on the deck of the steamer now, and it was deuced hot. The bra.s.s helmet plate of the Queen's Own Madras Sappers and Miners gleamed up at him, lovingly polished by his batman that morning. But it presented an excellent mark for a sharpshooter, and he rubbed his grimy palm into it, and then replaced the helmet on his head. He reached out to touch the metal casing of the paddlewheel, the last spot of shade along the side of the vessel, but the metal was like a furnace. A lump of coal rolled out from under an oilskin in front of him and he kicked it despondently. At least they had managed to get that dry. He had seen speckles of iron pyrites in the coal, and had remembered an alarming demonstration of spontaneous combustion in damp coal at the School of Military Engineering. It would have been a less than glorious end to his first field command, immolated on a sandbar in a G.o.dforsaken river gorge in the jungle of eastern India, without ever having fired a shot. He was beginning to realize that war was like that.

He watched a crocodile swim languidly by, seemingly oblivious to the drama unfolding at the river bend, then shifted to face the foredeck of the vessel, pulling his Sam Browne belt around so his holster was out of the way, and keeping his head below the iron plating they had erected as bullet-proofing in the river port at Rajahmundry. He glanced at the nameplate, Shamrock, then at his men. Kneeling behind the plating were a dozen Madrasi sappers, their cartridge pouches open and their Snider-Enfield rifles at the ready. Beyond them was the seven-pounder gun, with canisters of grapeshot and a sponging rod laid alongside. Colonel Rammell had urgently requested mountain pack guns for the mules but instead they had been sent two muzzle-loading field pieces with fixed carriages, useless in the jungle. At the last minute the sappers had installed one on the river steamer, and had devised a block and tackle to keep the recoil under control. Beyond the gun the lascar boatmen were still engaged in a futile effort to kedge the vessel off the sandbar which had held them fast for almost two days now. During the night another boat had come upriver, delivering a replacement officer and taking away some of the sappers broken by jungle fever, but every effort of the crewmen had failed to dislodge the steamer. That was another reason to pray for the return of the monsoon. With the river in full spate, they would float off and be able to continue their voyage upriver to Wuddagudem, where they were supposed to be hacking a road out of the jungle. Their mules were still standing patiently in the lee of the deckhouse, with racks of picks and axes stacked beside them. One of the lascars was there too, lying unconscious on a stretcher. His moans and cries had made the previous night intolerable. The afternoon before, the boatmen had taken the anchor out in the little boat and dropped it a hundred feet away, and the unfortunate lascar had been at the capstan when the hawser had broken and snapped back, mangling his legs. Surgeon Walker had dosed him with brandy and laudanum but there was nothing more he could do. The lascar had been their only casualty of the expedition so far, and Howard was too tired for another night like that. He fervently hoped the man would not last the day.

There was a lazy whine overhead, followed by a dull thump and a puff of smoke from the opposite sh.o.r.e. A copiously moustached figure walked into view from behind the deckhouse and planted himself firmly behind the line of riflemen, his hands behind his back and his heavy Adams revolver drawn. He turned toward Howard, and a bloodshot eye bore down on him from under the peak of his pith helmet.

"Shall we give them a volley, sir? Put the wind up them. f.u.c.king savages."

"Sergeant O'Connell. Might I remind you we are desired by government to open negotiations to induce the rebels to free the native constables they have taken captive."

"Poppyc.o.c.k, sir, if I may say so."

"You may. Meanwhile, hold your fire."

The moustache twitched. "Very good, sir."

Howard took out a bra.s.s and ivory pocket telescope from a pouch on his belt, raised his head slightly over the plating and peered through the telescope at the far bank. There were dozens of them now, streaming down from the village, lean, dark men clad in loincloths, some carrying bows and arrows and others long matchlock smoothbores. He could see that some were more extravagantly made up, their long hair combed and braided forward and embellished with red cloth and feathers. Some of them carried skin drums and bra.s.s trumpets. Along the foresh.o.r.e cl.u.s.ters of men were digging pits in the sand and erecting three bamboo poles in a line against the edge of the jungle. They had lit large bonfires, and the swirling black smoke drifted over the river, obscuring the scene from the steamer. It was unsettling to view, flashes of activity revealed and then obscured in the smoke, impossible to discern the intent. At any moment they might pull out their canoes and ma.s.s for attack. Howard turned to the sergeant. "Their last fusillade was up in the air. There's something odd going on over there. They're right on the edge of the riverbank, as if they want us to see them, taunting us. If they start aiming at us, you can let fly. On my command. You understand?"

"Sir." The sun-scorched face stared resolutely forward.

Howard looked out at the scene again. A week ago, washed by the rain, this had been a place of shimmering beauty, the great gorge of the G.o.davari snaking its way through hills of sparkling green, rising on either side five hundred feet or more, with the ridges and peaks of the Eastern Ghats beyond. But now, it was as if a heavy miasma had risen up from the river and choked the valleys in veils of mist. The river was a lifeline, the only place where the sun burned through, and everywhere else was cloaked, sinister. He could sense the fear and superst.i.tion of the spirit world, the hundred G.o.ds and demons these people believed lurked in the jungle. His first patrol ash.o.r.e had deeply unnerved him, and it was not just the rebels waiting in ambush. There was something else there, something that had kept these dark places remote and impervious from the march of progress across the continent. He could understand why their native bearers from the coastal lowlands feared and despised this place, and refused to come with them beyond Rajahmundry. He took a deep breath and raised his eyegla.s.s again toward the reed-roofed village that spread along the opposite riverbank, and the increasing throng of natives who swirled and danced around the fires on the sandy foresh.o.r.e. He turned to the Indian officer beside him, a ferocious-looking Madrasi in a turban, with piercing dark eyes. He spoke to him in Hindi. "Jemadar, pa.s.s the word for Mr. Wauchope, would you?"

"Sahib."

A few moments later a tall figure ambled out from the deckhouse, carrying a small open book in one hand. He wore dust-colored khaki, the new fad among officers fresh from the northwest frontier, and his puttees were bound with strips of colorful Afghan cloth. He was bareheaded and tanned, with a thick crop of black hair and a full beard. Howard had spoken to him briefly when he had arrived during the night with the reinforcements, hearing the latest news from Afghanistan, but Wauchope had promptly gone to sleep in what counted as the officers' quarters under a mosquito net beside the deckhouse. Howard was looking forward to having another officer on deck, one who was famously unruffled, just what was needed to keep them all from becoming unhinged by the darkness and sorcery of this place.

Wauchope peered at the tumult on the opposite sh.o.r.e, pursed his lips, then nodded at Howard. He had sharp eyes, intense like the jemadar's, but with humor in them. "I was looking for the saloon," he said, with a p.r.o.nounced drawl. "I have come to realize that this is not exactly a Mississippi River steamer."

"I never understood why you left America, Robert."

"My family is Irish, remember." Wauchope slouched down beside the railing, and fished out a pipe. "Not poor Irish, but landowning Irish of English origin. My father moved us to America because he felt powerless during the famine, and could not bear to return afterward. We have a long tradition of soldiering. For me, it was either West Point or the Royal Military Academy. After having lived through the American Civil War as a boy, I never wanted the possibility of facing my brother on the field of battle." He tapped his pipe. "I was inclined to seek my glory abroad."

"I was here in India during the mutiny, you know," Howard said. "A babe in arms. I don't remember it and my mother never told me what I saw, but I used to have bad dreams. Not anymore." He paused, then he gestured at the book. "What are you reading?"

Wauchope deftly struck a match with his other hand and lit his pipe, sucking on it as he flicked the match overboard. He raised the spine of the book toward Howard. "Arrian. The life of Alexander the Great. We found some ancient ruins up beyond the Indus, and I'm sure they're Greek altars."

"The frontier's got you hooked, Robert."

"I've put in for the Survey of India, you know. They've got a vacancy on the Boundary Commission. I was heading back from the Afghan campaign to tie up my affairs with the regiment in Bangalore when I was diverted here as a replacement."

"We've been dropping like ninepins. Every officer who steps into the jungle is prostrate within a week. It's the worst fever I've ever seen."

"You seem to have survived it."

"I was born here, remember? Any child who survives the Bengal summer is set for life."

"Surgeon-Major Ross in Bangalore thinks it's the mosquitoes."

"Of course it is." Howard swatted his neck, and peered up at the sky. Beyond the hills a black swathe of cloud had appeared, forked by distant lightning. "And we're not safe from mosquitoes anymore on the river. The monsoon's pushing them out over us like a pestilential blanket."

"Pity." Wauchope drew on his pipe, closing his book. "If you only allowed yourself to be struck down by the fever, you'd be invalided from here and then sent to Afghanistan. That's where careers are being made. There'll be no medals out of this place."

"I'm detailed for the Khyber Field Force. They say the war there isn't over yet. But I've wanted to be near Edward and Helen in Bangalore. Colonel Prendergast has been most understanding."

"Ah." Wauchope put his hand on Howard's arm. "How is your little boy?"

Howard's face fell. "He's not good, Robert. He's been sickly all year. You know what that can mean for an infant out here."

Howard's voice hoa.r.s.ened. "I cherish him dearly. Poor Helen is beside herself." He turned away, blinking hard, then knelt up again and peered over the plating. He pa.s.sed his telescope to the other man. "See what you make of that."

Wauchope glanced at Howard with concern, then peered through the gla.s.s at the foresh.o.r.e. "Good Lord. There must be five hundred of them, maybe more."

The scene had changed from a few moments earlier. There were now crowds of men milling around the bonfires, and there were gourds, the palm liquor flowing freely. The men with braided hair wielded swirling batons, now weaving them into spirals, now figures of eight and back again. Drums were being beaten, discordant, out of unison, then together in a monotonous beat. Suddenly an extraordinary apparition materialized out of the smoke. A dozen men appeared with extravagant headgear of bison horns, great curved horns that perched precariously on their heads. They wore tiger skins, and their faces were red with k.u.mk.u.m powder. As they came forward the air was rent with shrieking, so loud it set Howard's teeth on edge. The men advanced in a line toward the riverbank, retreated, then advanced again, kneeling down and pawing the earth in imitation of fighting bulls.

"I believe they are invoking the bloodred G.o.d of battle, Manecksoroo," Howard murmured. "Asking to turn battle axes into swords, bows and arrows into gunpowder and bullets."

"They have real bulls too," Wauchope said, pa.s.sing the telescope over. Howard peered through, and grunted. "So that's it." He snapped shut the gla.s.s, then turned and leaned back against the railing. "Bull sacrifice. That's what those pits are for. They mix the blood with grain and throw it into the forest clearings, to induce fertility of the soil. This could go on for hours, until they are stupefied with the toddy."

"I thought sacrifice had been suppressed," Wauchope said.

"Human sacrifice, yes, decades ago, but not animal sacrifice, though it's discouraged." Howard slumped, suddenly overwhelmed with la.s.situde. "This is what those idiots at the Board of Revenue don't understand. I've brought Campbell's book on the suppression of human sacrifice with me. You can read it yourself He says we can't use morality to persuade a people to give up their age-old customs. Our morality means nothing to them. You have to show them that their life will be improved as a consequence. If you then take away their greatest pleasures, they will return to their old ways. We broke the cycle by showing them their land could be fertile without needing sacrifice. Now a stroke of the pen in Calcutta and it is all undone. It was all lurking just below the surface, just inside the jungle, but now they want us to see it. You can hardly blame them."

"Tell me about these people."

"They're Koya," Howard said. "Descendants of the ancient Dravidian inhabitants of India, here at the time of Alexander the Great. But you couldn't get a greater contrast to the civilization of the Mughals or the Sikhs. These people are more akin to your Red Indians. They hunt in the jungle and burn small clearings for crops. Hardly any of them have a notion of the world outside."

"Maybe no bad thing," Wauchope murmured, drawing on his pipe. "Do we have their language?"

"I possess a slight colloquial knowledge of the vocabulary. But we have our interpreter, who tells me about their customs." Howard jerked his head toward a small, wiry man of indeterminate age sitting cross-legged on the foredeck, his skin deeply tanned and wearing only a white loincloth. His hair was dark brown, almost auburn, curly like his straggle of beard, and his face was wizened. In one hand he was holding a bow and arrows, and in the other a tubular section of bamboo about a foot long. His only embellishment was a gold chain hanging from the top of one ear to the lobe, with a small pendant dangling below. He was smoking a cheroot, and his eyes seemed dazed.

"He's half-cut on palm wine," Howard said. "It can't be helped. It's their lifeline during the monsoon. That's what this rebellion is all about. How much did Colonel Rammell tell you?"

Wauchope shook his head. "I only had time to report my arrival at the field force headquarters in Dowlaishweram. The boat with the sapper reinforcements was already waiting to take me upriver. And Rammell and his adjutant were both prostrate with fever. Like almost all the other officers."

Howard exhaled forcibly. "Well here's the nub of it. If some imbecile on the Board of Revenue hadn't decided to impose a tax on palm toddy, then we wouldn't be here. That, and the native policemen. For months at a time the only outside presence among these people has been the constables, lowlanders the hill people despise. The British superintendent of police and the agency commissioner hardly ever come up here because of the jungle fever. The constables are free to intimidate and exploit the hill people as lowlanders always have done. And now that we need them, they're worse than useless. Hardly a man of them can be got to smell gunpowder. The rebels' first act was to capture half a dozen of them. It's good riddance as far as I'm concerned."

A ragged volley erupted from the riverbank, but no sound of bullets overhead. "Matchlocks again, Sergeant. Hold your fire."

Wauchope peered over the metal plate at the smoke. "Where do they get their powder?"

"When I took my first party into the jungle last week, I searched a village and seized their guns, all matchlocks," Howard replied. "The women were making saltpeter by urinating into bags of manure suspended over pans, and then letting the liquid that seeped out crystallize. Ingenious, really. They're always burning jungle to open up new patches for cultivation so they have plenty of charcoal, and sulphur they get from traders. The powder's pretty poor, but it's good enough for small game. Some of them also get powder and ball from the lowland moneylenders who enslave them in debt. But I fear they now have a new source of weapons."

A bullet smacked against the smokestack of the steamer, causing an almighty clang, followed by a sharper crack from the sh.o.r.e. "Speak of the devil." Howard peered through his gla.s.s again. "An old East India Company percussion musket, native police issue. Some of the constables have supplied the rebels with arms and ammunition in return for their own safety. The police really are perfectly useless. They can be trusted to do nothing, they are disobedient and insubordinate. But Government wishes us to employ them. That's what happens when a war is run by clerks in Calcutta. And there's another problem. In the infantry regiments deployed in the field force, there are sepoy officers who still can't use maps properly, even the rudimentary ones we've made of this place. Without a map and bearings you're lost in the jungle. But all of our sappers are excellent map readers. So here we are, the Queen's Own Sappers and Miners, employed as infantry and police. It really is a most lamentable state of affairs."

"What's the quality of the official maps?"

Howard snorted. "That's the final rub. We've had to make them up as we go along. When Lieutenant George Everest came here in 1809 with the Great Trigonometric Survey, they hadn't even set up their trig posts on the hills before they were all struck down by fever. Half of them perished, and Everest never came back. This place is a great black hole smack in the middle of India. It may as well be Baluchistan, or the depths of central Asia." He glanced at the foredeck, and saw O'Connell glaring at him, his lower lip quivering. "Very well, Sergeant, bring your men to the ready. Another ball in our direction and you can open fire. First volley above their heads. Wait for my command."

"Sir." O'Connell instantly barked an order in Hindi and the line of rifles came up to the horizontal along the deck railing, followed by the clicks of hammers being pulled back to full-c.o.c.k. O'Connell was positively chomping at the bit, breathing like a bull ready to charge.

"I had a look at your native fellow when I came on board." Wauchope pointed his pipe at the man. "The pendant in his ear's a Roman coin, you know. Do you remember when we were cadets, I took you to the coin room in the British Museum? It's very worn, but I think it's from the time of the Roman Republic, possibly Julius Caesar."

"You come across them around Bangalore, and farther south," Howard said. "Edward's ayah has one, a gold coin. I'm told the Romans traded them for pepper."

"Who is he, anyway, our Koya friend?" Wauchope angled his pipe again.

"He's a muttadar, a local headman from Rampa, the village that gives its name to the district. He holds some kind of grudge against Chendrayya, the leader of the revolt. The muttadar acts from motives of self-interest. Once satisfied on that point, his time and labor have been most zealously and indefatigably given, when he's been sober enough." Howard lowered his voice. "He's also a vezzugada, a sorcerer. The Koya know nothing of the Hindu religion. They worship deities of their own, ancient Dravidian G.o.ds, animistic G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. Tigers, hyenas, buffalo. Sometimes the deities possess people, who are known then as the konda devata. Sacrifices are made to a dread deity called Ramaya. That hollow bamboo he's holding supposedly contains some kind of idol, the supreme velpu. He calls it the Lakkala Ramu, and it's rumored to be ornamented with eyes of olivine and lapis lazuli. He won't show it to anyone. It's supposed to be kept in a sacred cave, a shrine near Rampa village, to placate the deity. The muttadar took it from the shrine when he fled Chendrayya and came to us. But now the deity needs it back, and is apparently becoming agitated. Our side of the bargain is to help the muttadar replace it."

"Will you keep your promise?"

"Of course. We need to instill fear among the rebels, and confidence among those who are well-disposed toward us."

"Quite so."

There was a sudden commotion and a curse, and a hatch into the hold opened behind them. An indescribable smell wafted out, followed by a burly man stripped to the waist except for a luridly stained ap.r.o.n. He was only a few years older than the two subalterns, the same age as Sergeant O'Connell, and like O'Connell sported the long sideburns fashionable among a previous generation.

"Surgeon Walker," Howard said, looking at the man with concern. "How goes it in the black hole?"

"Most of the men have had repeated malarious attacks, and are in a very debilitated state." Walker spoke with the hard consonants of his birthplace, Kingston in Upper Canada, and six years at the Queen's University in Belfast. "There are serious after consequences-enlarged spleen, anemia, partial paralysis, extreme emaciation, disorders of the stomach and bowels, and other complaints of a grave nature. Many of the men are pa.s.sing through the hot stage of a febrile paroxysm, and their sufferings and distress are painful to witness."

"That vile odor?"

"Indeed. A singular putrid efflorescence." Walker wiped something unpleasant off his hand onto his ap.r.o.n. "I'm here for a breath of fresh air. Is Lieutenant Hamilton back yet?"

Howard shook his head and pulled out his fob watch. "He's been gone a full twenty-four hours now. He doesn't have provisions for any longer." He turned to Wauchope. "One of the muttadar's men informed us that Chendrayya had been seen in Rampa village about five miles north of here. I sent Hamilton out with what remains of G Company, only 22 men. It was a risk, but we've rarely encountered the rebels in gangs of more than 10 or 20. Until now, that is."

"Let's hope Hamilton doesn't walk into that lot," Wauchope murmured, jerking his head toward the riverbank.

Howard grunted. "I just wish he hadn't taken the infernal Bebbie with him."

"Who?"

"a.s.sistant commissioner for the Central Provinces." Howard paused, trying to control his temper. "Because government in its wisdom decided that this is a police action, all of our forays into the tribal agency are supposed to be led by a civil officer. Some are decent fellows, fine shots. Mr. Bebbie is decidedly not one of those. He gave us a lecture before we set out. How climate will always prevent this being the seat of prosperous industry or great commercial enterprise. How the Koya are a degenerate race, sunk in the depths of ignorance and superst.i.tion. How it is his duty to teach them the value of a moral obligation, and our duty not to upbraid them with the past but to inaugurate them with a better future. His lecture was a magnificent display of language united to a grievous perversion of the facts. It failed to conceal the truth that he's never bothered to come up here into his jurisdiction before and is permanently prostrate with fever. A more worthless specimen and perfectly useless leader of men I have not seen."

"I'm sure Hamilton will keep him in his place," Wauchope murmured with a smile, slouching back against the side of the boat and lighting his pipe again.

"Our muttadar is convinced that one of those men over there on the riverbank is Chendrayya, the rebel leader," Howard said. "If so, Hamilton has been led into a vipers' pit by Bebbie. I told Bebbie not to trust their guide, but Bebbie will not listen to G.o.d Almighty, let alone to a mere sapper subaltern." Howard closed his eyes. Another musket ball smacked into the funnel. He opened his eyes, nodded at Sergeant O'Connell, and raised his left arm. Then, sensing a commotion on the river, he quickly peered through his gla.s.s again. "Hold your fire!" he shouted. "I think I see Hamilton." They all followed his gaze. Half an hour earlier he had ordered the steamer's boat out into the river ready to pick up the returning party, and now they could see the boat coming around a sandy bluff at the river bend, concealed from the village. The four lascar seamen were pulling like fury against the current. In the middle was a throng of Madrasi sappers with their bayonets fixed, and the pith helmet of a British officer was visible at the stern. Behind them on the sandy bluff, loinclothed men with long matchlocks began to materialize out of the jungle and they heard cries and a ragged crackle of musketry. White smoke rose where the rebels had been firing and joined the river mist, briefly concealing both the boat and the rebels. When the smoke cleared the rebels had gone from the bluff, and Howard caught a glimpse of the last of them running along the sandbank toward the throng below the village, brandishing their matchlocks and whooping and hollering. A few moments later the boat had pulled around to the protected lee side of the steamer. There was a clatter as the men disembarked and came on deck, immediately slumping down below the railing. They reeked of sweat and sulphur, and looked exhausted. Hamilton, the last on board, made his way over to where Howard and the others were standing. He took out his Adams revolver and swung out the cylinder, dropping the empty cartridge cases. His hands were shaking, and his face was streaked with the greasy residue of gunpowder. He looked drawn, but exuberant. He was the youngest subaltern on the Madras establishment, and this was his first taste of the sharp end of soldiering.