After I had been in India a few
months, I got drunk and misbehaved myself, and was reduced to the ranks.
Well, ma'am, Captain Chillington took a fancy to me, thought I was not
such a bad dog after all, and got me appointed as his servant. And a
better master no man need ever wish to have--kind, generous, and a
perfect gentleman from top to toe. I loved him, and would have gone
through fire and water to serve him."
Her ladyship's fan was trembling again. "Oblige me with my salts, Miss
Hope," she said. She pressed them to her nose, and motioned to the
Sergeant to proceed.
"When I had been with the Captain a few months," resumed the old
soldier, "he got leave of absence for several weeks, and everybody knew
that it was his intention to spend his holiday in a shooting excursion
among the hills. I was to go with him, of course, and the usual troop of
native servants; but besides himself there was only one European
gentleman in the party, and he was not an Englishman. He was a Russian,
and his name was Platzoff. He was a gentleman of fortune, and was
travelling in India at the time, and had come to my master with letters
of introduction. Well, Captain Chillington just took wonderfully to him,
and the two were almost inseparable. Perhaps it hardly becomes one like
me to offer an opinion on such a point; but, knowing what afterwards
happened, I must say that I never either liked or trusted that Russian
from the day I first set eyes on him.
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