KILLED BY A PLEASANT SURPRISE.

Evening Star, Issue 11684, 17 February 1902, Page 7

KILLED BY A PLEASANT SURPRISE.

H was a station garrisoned by a single regiment of Native Infantry (savs an old Anglo-Indian in ‘The British Realm )• Soon after my first arrival there I called op married of&cei>i and dropped ni\ card at the mess. • With that hospitality proverlpal with the military, I was invited to dinner on the next guest night. If* be followed by an offer of honorary membership of their mess, both of which I gladly accepted. On going over to (he messhouse I was received with the utmost cordiality and civility; but I could not help at "once noticing that something disturbed my hosts in no small degree-—some agitating clement in the air that seemed to oppress them. One man, Captain L——, I remarked to Ire the centre of solicitude. He sat dejectedly in a distant part of the room. His comrades would frequently gather round him, addressing him in whisper-', wringing his hands, and acting altogether as if L required their commiseration and sympathy. At short intervals men came out into the verandah and looked across the road, and orderly after orderly arrived at the double, and made the same announcement; Übbhi nakin aya, khudawund” (“Not come yet, my lord”). Of course, being a stranger, and the only black coat among them, T remained in ignorance of the cause, till shortly before adjourning lo the dining room the major whispered the secret to me? Captain L ,it ap-peared—-a good fellow and a fine soldier—was a- “ plunger,” and his affairs had culminated so disastrously that this was the eve of his sending in his papers. His only hope consisted of bis success ;n some huge foreign lottery, news of which he had been expecting for some days. If he drew the first, second, or third' prize his difficulties would vanish; if not, m his papers would have to go on the morrow. But the whole story is too long ; sufficient that the major told me the pith, as above. We went in to dinner, and were halfway through when an orderly rushed in and handed L a wire. Amid a profound silence he opened the envelope, read the contents, and the next moment his head fell forward—he was dead! That telegram conveyed the news that poor L had won the first prize, some five thousand pounds!