A SON OF MARS vol 2

Poor old Larkins and his wife were completely broken by Mimie’s terrible mishap. They could not find it in their hearts to speak harshly of their unhappy child; but they were loudly indignant against the man who had tempted her to leave her home. Herbert, too, came in for his share of their reproaches, when he confessed that he had been for some time aware of the intimacy between Mimie and Ernest Farrington, and had long dreaded some such catastrophe.

‘Oh, Herbert!’ Mrs. Larkins had said to him more than once, ‘to think you should have seen her in such danger, and never to let on a word. I thought better of you—after all—’

‘I know I am greatly to blame, mother. You cannot say anything harder of me than I do of myself. But she promised me never—never to meet him again, and I trusted her. Wasn’t it natural?’

‘Trust her? I’d have trusted her with untold gold. I thought she was as good as gold herself, and better. That’s what stings me. To think that she should have held herself so cheap as to be led astray by such a fellow as that, and a Farrington, too.’

‘Farrington or no Farrington, he shall answer for this to me, mother, and that I swear.’

‘Hush, Herbert lad, remember who he is, and who you are.’

‘I warned him that if she came to any harm, I’d be even with him, and I will, so help me Heaven,’

‘Don’t, Herbert, don’t talk like that. You might be court-martialled, and for ever disgraced, even for those words. Do you think he will not be punished some day as he deserves, and that, whether you raise a little finger against him or no? We must leave him in other hands.’

Mrs. Larkins’ resignation hardly chimed in with Herbert’s impetuous mood.

‘I’d be after him now; aye, although I’m a soldier, and tied by the leg. I’d show a clean pair of heels, only—’

It was clear that desertion was in his mind.

‘Promise me, Herbert, swear to me, Herbert, that you will do nothing rash. Don’t desert your colours. Don’t forget your sacred duty, even for us.’

‘I had made up my mind to follow them last night. I could have got a passage home, and plain clothes and everything, but the steamer did not start, and to-day it’s too late.’

‘Too late? Thank God for that; but why?’

‘Haven’t you heard the news, mother?’ Then he bethought himself that in her grievous trial there was but little likelihood of the gossip of the garrison reaching her ears.

‘The route’s in,’ Herbert went on, using the catch phrase of the soldier. ‘The regiment’s under orders for active service, and we start directly the steamer arrives.’

‘Start? For where?’

‘Ashanti. It was in orders last night, and the generals coming to inspect us this afternoon, with the P.M.O., to see who’s fit for service and who’s not. The whole barrack’s upside down. Officers and men mad with delight. So should I be for this chance, which may not come twice.’