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Updated: May 31, 2025
Dirkovitch rose with his "brothers glorious," but he could not understand. No one but an officer can tell what the toast means; and the bulk have more sentiment than comprehension. Immediately after the little silence that follows on the ceremony there entered the native officer who had played for the Lushkar team.
Dirkovitch knew this as well as any one else, but it suited him to talk special-correspondently and to make himself as genial as he could. Now and then he volunteered a little, a very little, information about his own Sotnia of Cossacks, left apparently to look after themselves somewhere at the back of beyond.
"That settles it," said the colonel, with a gasp. "He's not a sergeant. What in the world is he?" The entire mess echoed the word, and the volley of questions would have scared any man. It was no wonder that the ragged, filthy invader could only smile and shake his head. From under the table, calm and smiling, rose Dirkovitch, who had been roused from healthful slumber by feet upon his body.
Hira Singh started slightly at the sound of the man's pain. Dirkovitch took another glass of brandy. 'WHAT does the sentry say? said the colonel. 'Sez 'e speaks English, sir, said the corporal. 'So you brought him into mess instead of handing him over to the sergeant! If he spoke all the Tongues of the Pentecost you've no business Again the bundle groaned and muttered.
Dirkovitch rose with his 'brothers glorious, but he could not understand. No one but an officer can tell what the toast means; and the bulk have more sentiment than comprehension. Immediately after the little silence that follows on the ceremony there entered the native officer who had played for the Lushkar team.
All that they possessed, including some wondrous brandy, was placed at the absolute disposition of Dirkovitch, and he enjoyed himself hugely even more than among the Black Tyrones. But he remained distressingly European through it all. The White Hussars were "My dear true friends," "Fellow-soldiers glorious," and "Brothers inseparable."
Dirkovitch was a Russian a Russian of the Russians who appeared to get his bread by serving the Czar as an officer in a Cossack regiment, and corresponding for a Russian newspaper with a name that was never twice alike. He was a handsome young Oriental, fond of wandering through unexplored portions of the earth, and he arrived in India from nowhere in particular.
The man could not explain how, like a homing pigeon, he had found his way to his own old mess again. Of what he had suffered or seen he knew nothing. He cringed before Dirkovitch as instinctively as he had pressed the spring of the candlestick, sought the picture of the drum-horse, and answered to the toast of the Queen.
"Speak to him, if he'll answer you, and speak to him gently," said Little Mildred, settling the man in a chair. It seemed most improper to all present that Dirkovitch. should sip brandy as he talked in purring, spitting Russian to the creature who answered so feebly and with such evident dread. But since Dirkovitch appeared to understand, no man said a word.
Dirkovitch spoke very thickly. "What has a Queen's officer to do with a qualified number?" said the colonel, and there rose an unpleasant growl round the table. "How can I tell?" said the affable Oriental, with a sweet smile. "He is a how you have it? escape runaway, from over there." He nodded toward the darkness of the night.
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