After twenty years' service he was discharged with a considerable pension.

His return to Europe falling in with the outbreak of the war, he hastened to offer his voluntary services to the army as surgeon.

Owing to temperate habits and a strong physique, he had kept in good health, and no one would have dreamed that this strong, fifty-year-old man had passed so many years in an enervating tropical climate.

The only signs it had left on his face were the dark, yellowish color of his skin, and the habit of keeping the eyes half-closed.

The long years in India had also made a deep impression on his character, and many things about him would have appeared strange and odd in a European.