At this Sookdee laughed: "Jamadar," he said, "what matters to a dead man the manner of his killing? Indeed it is a merciful way. Such as Bhowanee herself decreed—in a second it is over. But with the spear, or the sword—ah! I have seen men writhe in agony and die ten times before it was an end."

"But a caste is a caste," Ajeet objected, "and the manner of the caste. We are decoits, and we only slay when there is no other way."

Hunsa tipped his gorilla body forward from where it rested on his heels as he sat, and his lowering eyes were sullen with impatience:

"Chief Ajeet," he snarled, "think you that we can rob the seth of his treasure without an outcry—and if there is an outcry, that he will not go back to those of his caste in Poona, and when trouble is made, think you that the Dewan will thank us for the bungling of this? And as to the matter of a thug or a decoit, half our men have been taught the art of the strangler. With these,"—and extending his massive arms he closed his coarse hands in a gnarled grip,—"with these I would, with one sharp in-turn on the roomal, crack the neck of the merchant and he would be dead in the taking of a breath. And, Ajeet, if this that is the manner of men causes you fear—"

"Hunsa," and Ajeet's voice was constrained in its deadliness, "that ass's voice of yours will yet bring you to grief."

But Sookdee interposed:

"Let us not quarrel," he said. "Ajeet no doubt has in his mind Bootea as I have Meena. And it would be well if the two were sent on the road in the cart, and when our work is completed we will follow. Indeed they may know nothing but that there is some jewel, such as women love, to be given them."

"Look you," cried Hunsa thrusting his coarse hand out toward the road, "even Bhowanee is in favour. See you not the jackal?"

Turning their eyes in the direction Hunsa indicated, a jackal was seen slinking across the road from right to left.

"Indeed it is an omen," Sookdee corroborated; "if on our journeys to commit a decoity that is always a good omen."

"And there is the voice!" Hunsa exclaimed, as the tremulous lowing of a cow issued from the village.

He waved a beckoning hand to Guru Lal, for they had brought with them their tribal priest as an interpreter of omens chiefly. "Is not the voice of the cow heard at sunset a good omen, Guru?" he demanded.

"Indeed it is," the priest affirmed. "If the voice of a cow is heard issuing at twilight from a village at which decoits are to profit, it is surely a promise from Bhowanee that a large store of silver will be obtained."

"Take thee to thy prayers, Guru," Ajeet commanded, "for we have matters to settle." He turned to Sookdee. "Your omens will avail little if there is prosecution over the disappearance of the merchant. I am supposed to be in command, the leader, but I am the led. But I will not withdraw, and it is not the place of the chief to handle the roomal. We will eat our food, and after the evening prayers will sit about the fire and amuse this merchant with stories such as honest men and holy ones converse in, that he may be at peace in his mind. As Sookdee says, the women will be sent to the grove of trees we came through on the road."

"We will gather about the fire of the merchant," Sookdee declared, "for it is in the mango grove and hidden from sight of the villagers. Also a guard will be placed between here and the village, and one upon the roadway."

"And while we hold the merchant in amusement," Hunsa added, "men will dig the pits here, two of them, each within a tent so that they will not be seen at work."

"Yes, Ajeet," Sookdee said with a suspicion of a sneer, "we will give the merchant the consideration of a decent burial, and not leave him to be eaten by jackals and hyenas as were the two soldiers you finished with your sword when we robbed the camel transport that carried the British gold in Oudh."

"If it is to be, cease to chatter like jays," Ajeet answered crossly.

In keeping with their assumed characters, the evening meal was ushered in with a peace-shattering clamour from the drums and a raucous blare from conch-shell horns. Then the devout murderers offered up prayers of fervency to the great god, beseeching their more immediate branch of the deity, Bhowanee, to protect them.

And at the same time, just within the mud walls of Sarorra, its people were placing flowers and cocoanuts and sweetmeats upon the shrine of the god of their village.

Just without the village gate the elephant-nosed Ganesh sat looking in whimsical good nature across his huge paunch toward the place of crime, the deep shadow that lay beneath the green-leafed mango trees.

In the hearts of the Bagrees there was unholy joy, an eager anticipation, a gladsome feeling toward Bhowanee who had certainly guided this rapacious merchant with his iron box full of jewels to their camp.

Indeed they would sacrifice a buffalo at her temple of Kajuria, for that was the habit of their clan when the booty was great. The taking of life was but an incident. In Hindustan humans came up like flies, returning over and over to again encumber the crowded earth. In the vicissitudes of life before long the merchant would pass for a reincorporation of his soul, and probably, because of his sins as an oppressor of the poor, come back as a turtle or a jackass; certainly not as a revered cow—he was too unholy. In the gradation of humans he was but a merchant of the caste of the third dimension in the great quartette of castes. It would not be like killing a Brahmin, a sin in the sight of the great god.

This philosophy was as subtle as the perfume of a rose, unspoken, even at the moment a floaty thought. Like their small hands and their erect air of free-men, the Rajput atmosphere, it had grown into their created being, like the hunting instinct of a Rampore hound.

The merchant, smoking his hookah, having eaten, observed with keen satisfaction the evening devotions of the supposed mendicants. As it grew dark their guru was offering up a prayer to the Holy Cow, for she was to be worshipped at night. The merchant's appreciation was largely a worldly one, a business sense of insurance—safety for his jewels and nothing to pay for security—men so devout would have the gods in their mind and not robbery. When the jamadars, and some of the Bagrees who were good story tellers, and one a singer, did him the honour of coming to sit at his camp-fire he was pleased.

"Sit you here at my right," he said to Hunsa, for he conceived him to be captain of the Raja's guard.

Sookdee and the others, without apparent motive, contrived it so that a Bagree or two sat between each of the merchant's men, engaging them in pleasant speech, tendering tobacco. And, as if in modesty, some of the Bagrees sat behind the retainers.

"This is indeed a courtesy," the merchant assured Hunsa; "a poor trader feels honoured by a visit from so brave a soldier as the captain of the Raja's guard."

He noticed, too, with inward satisfaction, that the jamadars had left their weapons behind, which they had done in a way of not arousing their victim's fears.

"Would not it be deemed a courtesy," the merchant asked, "if one like myself, who is a poor trader, should go to pay his respects to the Raja ere he retires, for of course it would be beneath his dignity to come to his servant?"

"No, indeed," declared Hunsa quickly, thinking of the graves that were even then being dug; "he is a man of a haughty temper, and when he is in the society of the beautiful dancing girl who is with him, he cares not to be disturbed. Even now he is about to escort her in the cart down the road to where there is a shrine that women of that caste make offering to."

It had been arranged that Ajeet would escort Bootea, with two Bagrees as attendants, to the grove of trees half a mile down the road. He had insisted on this in the way of a negative support to the murder. As there would be no fighting this did not reflect on his courage as a leader. And as to complicity, Hunsa knew that as the leader of the party, Ajeet would be held the chief culprit. It was always the leader of a gang of decoits who was beheaded when captured, the others perhaps escaping with years of jail. And Hunsa himself, even Sookdee, would be safe, for they were in league with the Dewan.

There was an hour of social talk; many times Hunsa fingered the roomal that was about his waist; the yellow-and-white strangling cloth with which Bhowanee had commanded her disciples, the thugs, to kill their victims. In one corner of it was tied a silver rupee for luck. The natural ferocity of his mind threw him into an eager anticipation: he took pride in his proficiency as a strangler; his coarse heavy hands, like those of a Punjabi wrestler, were suited to the task. Grasping the cloth at the base of a victim's skull, tight to the throat, a side-twist inward and the trick was done, the spine snapped like a pipe-stem. And he had been somewhat out of practice—he had regretted that; he was fearful of losing the art, the knack.

About the fat paunch of the merchant was a silver-studded belt. Hunsa eyed this speculatively. Beyond doubt in its neighbourhood would be the key to the iron box; and when its owner lay on his back, his bulbous eyes glaring upward to where the moon trickled through the thick foliage of the mango tree beneath which they sat, he would seize the keys and be first to dabble his grimy fingers in the glittering gems.

Beyond, the village had hushed—the strident call of voices had ceased. Somewhere a woman was pounding grain in a wooden mortar—a dull monotonous "thud, thud, swish, thud" carrying on the dead air. Night-jars were circling above the trees, their plaintive call, "chy-eece, chy-e-ece!" filtering downward like the weird cry of spirits. Once the deep sonorous bugling note of a saurus, like the bass pipe of an organ, smote the stillness as the giant crane winged his way up the river that lay beyond, a mighty ribbon of silver in the moonlight. A jackal from the far side of the village, in the fields, raised a tremulous moan.

Sookdee looked into the eyes of Hunsa and he understood. It was the tibao, the happiest augury of success, for it came over the right shoulder of the victim.

Hunsa, feeling that the moment to strike had come, rose carelessly, saying: "Give me tobacco."

That was a universal signal amongst thugs, the command to strike.

Even as he uttered the words Hunsa had slipped behind the merchant and his towel was about the victim's neck. Each man who had been assigned as a strangler, had pounced upon his individual victim; while Sookdee stood erect, a knife in his hand, ready to plunge it into the heart of any one who was likely to overcome his assailant.

Hunsa had thrown the helpless merchant upon his face, and with one knee between his shoulder-blades had broken the neck; no sound beyond a gurgling breath of strangulation had passed the Hindu's lips. There had been no clamour, no outcry; nothing but a few smothered words, gasps, the scuffle of feet upon the earth; it was like a horrible nightmare, a fantastic orgy of murderous fiends. The flame of the campfire flickered sneers, drawn torture, red and green shadows in the staring faces of the men who lay upon the ground, and the figures of the stranglers glowed red in its light, like devils who danced in hell.

Hunsa had turned the merchant upon his back and his evil gorilla face was thrust into the face of his victim. No breath passed the thick protruding lips upon which was a froth of death.

As the Jamadar tore the keys from the waist-band, snapping a silver chain that was about the body, he said: "Sookdee, be quick. Have the bodies carried to the pits. Do not forget to drive a spear through each belly lest they swell up and burst open the earth."

"You have the keys to the chest, Hunsa?" Sookdee said, with suspicion in his voice.

"Yes, Jamadar; I will open it. We will empty it, and place the iron box on top of the bodies in a pit, for it is too heavy to carry, and if we are stopped it might be observed."

"Take the dead," Sookdee commanded the Bagrees; "lay them out; take down the tents that are over the pits, and by that time I will be there to count these dead things in the way of surety that not one has escaped with the tale.

"Come," he said to Hunsa, "together we will go to the iron box and open it; then there can be no suspicion that the men of Alwar have been defrauded."

Hunsa turned malignant eyes upon Sookdee, but, keys in hand, strode toward the tent.

Sookdee, thrusting in the fire a torch made from the feathery bark of the kujoor tree, followed.

Hunsa kneeling before the iron box was fitting the keys into the double locks. Then he drew the lids backward, and the two gasped at a glitter of precious stones that lay beneath a black velvet cloth Hunsa stripped from the gems.

Sookdee cried out in wonderment; and Hunsa, slobbering gutturals of avarice, patted the gems with his gorilla paws. He lifted a large square emerald entwined in a tracery of gold, delicate as the criss-cross of a spider's web, and held it to his thick lips.

"A bribe for a princess!" he gloated. "Take you this, Sookdee, and hide it as you would your life, for a gift to the son of the Peshwa, who, methinks, is behind the Dewan in this, we will be men of honour. And this"—a gleaming diamond in a circlet of gold—"for Sirdar Baptiste," and he rolled it in his loin cloth. "And this,"—a string of pearls, that as he laid it on the black velvet was like the tears of angels,—"This for the fat pig of a Dewan to set his four wives at each other's throats. Let not the others know of these, Sookdee, of these that we have taken for the account."

Suddenly there was a clamour of voices, cries, the clang of swords, the sharp crash of a shot, and the two jamadars, startled, eyes staring, stood with ears cocked toward the tumult.

"Soldiers!" Sookdee gasped. His hand brushed Hunsa's bare arm as he thrust it into the chest and brought it forth clasping jewels, which he tied in a knot of his waistcloth. "Take you something, Hunsa, and lock the box till we see," he said darting from the tent.

Hunsa filled a pocket of his brocaded Jacket, but he was looking for the Akbar Lamp, the ruby. He lifted out a tray and ran his grimy hands through the maze of gold and silver wrought ornaments below. His fingers touched, at the very bottom, a bag of leather. He tore it open, and a blaze of blood-red light glinted at him evilly where a ruby caught the flame of the torch that Sookdee had thrown to the earth floor as he fled.

With a snarl of gloating he rolled the ruby in a fold of his turban, locked the box, and darted after Sookdee.

He all but fell over the seven dead bodies of the merchant and his men as he raced to where a group was standing beyond. And there three more bodies lay upon the ground, and beside them, held, were two horses.

"It is Ajeet Singh," Sookdee said pointing to where the Chief lay with his head in the lap of a decoit. "These two native soldiers of the English came riding in with swiftness, for behind them raced Ajeet who must have seen them pass."

"And here," another added, "as the riders checked at sight of the dead, Ajeet pulled one from his horse and killed him, but the other, with a pistol, shot Ajeet and he is dead."

"The Chief is not dead," said the one who held his head in his lap; "he is but shot in the shoulder, and I have stopped the blood with my hand."

"And we have killed the other soldier," another said, "for, having seen the bodies, we could not let him live."

From Sookdee's hand dangled a coat of one of the dead.

"This that is a leather purse," he said, "contains letters; the red thing on them I have looked upon before—it is the seal of the Englay. It was here in the coat of that one who is a sergeant—the other being a soldier."

He put the leather case within the bosom of his shirt, adding: "This may even be of value to the Dewan. Beyond that, there was little of loot upon these dogs of the Englay—eight rupees. The coats and the turbans we will burn."

Hunsa stooped down and slipped the sandals from the feet of the one Sookdee had pointed out as the officer.

"The footwear is of little value, but we will take the brass cooking pots of the merchant," Sookdee said, eyeing this performance; there was suspicion in his eyes lighted from the flare of their camp fires.

"Sookdee," Hunsa said, "you have the Englay leather packet, but they do not send sowars through the land of the Mahratta with the real message written on the back of the messenger. In quiet I will rip apart the soles of this footwear. Do you that with the saddles; therein is often hidden the true writing. In the slaying of these two we have acquired a powerful enemy, the English, and the message, if there be one, might be traded for our lives. Here are the keys to the box, for it is heavy."

Into Hunsa's mind had flashed the thought that the gods had opened the way, for he had plotted to do this thing—the destruction of Ajeet.

"Have all the bodies thrown into the pit, Sookdee," he advised; "make perfect the covering of the fire and ash, and while you prepare for flight I will go and bring Bootea's cart to carry Ajeet."

Then Hunsa was swallowed up in the gloom of the night, melting like a shadow into the white haze of the road as he raced like a grey wolf toward the Gulab, who now had certainly been delivered into his hands.

Soon his heart pumped and the choke of exertion slowed him to a fast walk. The sandals, bulky with their turned-up toes, worried him. He drew a knife from his sash and slit the tops off, muttering: "If it is here, the message of value, it will be between the two skins of the soles."

Now they lay flat and snug in his hand as he quickened his pace.



CHAPTER IX

The Gulab heard the shot at the Bagree camp, and Hunsa found her trembling from apprehension.

"What has happened, Jamadar?" she cried. "Ajeet heard the beat of iron-shod hoofs upon the road, and seeing in the moonlight the two riders knew from the manner they sat the saddles that they were of the Englay service; when he called to them they heeded him not. Then Ajeet followed the two. Why was the shot, Hunsa?"

"They have killed Ajeet," Hunsa declared; "but also they are dead, and I have the leader's leather sandals for a purpose. The shot has roused the village, and even now our people are preparing for flight. Get you into the cart that I may take you to safety." He took the ruby from his turban, saying: "And here is the most beautiful ruby in Hind; the fat pig of a Dewan wants it, but I have taken it for you."

But Bootea pushed his hand away: "I take no present from you, Hunsa."

Hunsa put the jewel back in his turban and commanded the two men, who stood waiting, "Make fast the bullocks to the cart quickly lest we be captured, because other soldiers are coming behind."

The two Bagrees turned to where the slim pink-and-grey coated trotting bullocks were tethered by their short horns to a tree and leading them to the cart made fast the bamboo yoke across their necks.

"Get into the cart, Bootea," Hunsa commanded, for the girl had not moved.

"I will not!" she declared. "I'm going back to Ajeet; he is not dead—it is a trick."

"He is dead," Hunsa snarled, seizing her by arm.

The Gulab screamed words of denunciation. "Take your hands off me, son of a pig, accursed man of low caste! Ajeet will kill you for this, dog!"

At this the wife of Sookdee fled, racing back toward the camp. One of the men darted forward to follow, but Hunsa stayed him, saying, "Let her go—it is better; I war not upon Sookdee."

He had the Gulab now in the grasp of both his huge paws, and holding her tight, said rapidly: "Be still you she-devil, accursed fool! You are going to a palace to be a queen. The son of the Peshwa desires you. True, I, also, have desire, but fear not for, by Bhowanee! it is a life of glory, of jewels and rich attire that I take you to; so get into the cart."

But Bootea wrenched free an arm and struck Hunsa full upon his ugly face, screaming her rebellion.

"To be struck by a woman!" Hunsa blared; "not a woman, but the spawn of a she-leopard! why should not I beat your beautiful face into ugliness with one of these sandals of a dead pig!"

He lifted her bodily, calling to the man upon the ground, the other having mounted behind the bullocks. "Put back the leather wall of the cart that I may hurl this outcast widow of a dead Hindu within."

Bootea clawed at his face; she kicked and fought; her voice screaming a call to Ajeet.

There was a heavy rolling thump of hoofs upon the roadway, unheard of Hunsa because of the vociferous struggle. Then from the shimmer of moonlight thrust the white form of a big Turcoman horse that was thrown almost to his haunches, his breast striking the back of the decoit.

The bullocks, nervous little brutes, startled by the huge white animal, swerved, and before the man who sat a-straddle of the one shaft gathered tight the cord to their nostrils, whisked the cart to the roadside where it toppled over the bank for a fall of fifteen feet into a ravine, carrying bullocks and driver with it.

The moonlight fell full upon the face of the horseman, its light making still whiter the face of Captain Barlow.

And Bootea recognised him. It was the face that had been in her vision night and day since the nautch.

"Save me, Sahib!" she cried; "these men are thieves; save me, Sahib!"

The hunting crop in Barlow's hand crashed upon the thick head of Hunsa in ready answer to the appeal. And as the sahib threw himself from the saddle the jamadar, with a snarl like a wounded tiger, dropped the girl and, whirling, grappled with the Englishman.

Barlow was strong; few men in the force, certainly none in the officers' mess, could put him on his back; and he was lithe, supple as a leopard; and in combat cool, his mind working like the mind of a chess player: but he realised that the arms about him were the arms of a gorilla, the chest against which he was being crushed was the chest of a trained wrestler; a smaller man would have heard his bones cracking in that clutch.

He raised a knee and drove it into the groin of the jamadar; then in the slight slackening of the holding arms as the Bagree shrank from the blow, he struck at the bearded chin; it was the clean, trained short-arm jab of a boxer.

But even as the gorilla wavered staggeringly under the blow, a soft something slipped about Barlow's throat and tightened like the coils of a python. And behind something was pressing him to his death. The other Bagree springing to the assistance of Hunsa had looped his roomal about the Sahib's throat with the art of a thug.

Barlow's senses were going; his brain swam; in his fancy he had been shot from a cliff and was hurtling through space in which there was no air—his lungs had closed; in his brain a hammer was beating him into unconsciousness.

Then suddenly the pressure on his throat ceased, it fell away; the air rushed to the parched lungs. With a wrench his brain cleared, and he went down; but now with power in his arms, the arms that still clung about the dazed Hunsa, and he was on top.

Scarce aware of the action, out of a fighting instinct, he dragged from its holster his heavy pistol, and beat with its butt the ugly head beneath, beat it till it was still. Then he staggered to his feet and looked wonderingly at the form of the Bagree behind who lay sprawled on the road, a great red splash across the white jacket on his breast.

In the Gulab's hand was still clutched the dagger she had drawn from her girdle and driven home to save the sahib who had sat like a god in her heart. With the other hand she held out from contact with her limbs the muslin sari that was crimsoned where the blood of the Bagree had fountained when she drew forth her knife.

Barlow darted forward as Bootea reeled and caught her with an arm. Close, the face, fair as that of a memsahib in the pallor of fright and the paling moonlight, sweet, of finer mould, more spiritual than the Mona Lisa's, puritanically simple, the mass of black hair drawn straight back from the low broad brow—for the rich turban had fallen in her fight for freedom—woke memory in the sahib; and as the blood ebbed back through the girl's veins, the pale cheeks flushed with rose, her eyelids quivered and drew back their shutters from eyes that were like those of an antelope.

"You—you, Gulab, the giver of the red rose, the singer of the love song!" Barlow gasped.

"Yes, Captain Sahib, you who are like a god—" Bootea checked, her head drooped.

But Barlow putting his fingers under her chin and gently lifting the face asked, "And what—what?"

"You came like one in a dream. Also, Sahib, I am but one who danced before you and you have saved me."

"And, little girl, you saved my life."

He felt a shudder run through the girl's form, and then she pushed him from her crying, "Sahib—Hunsa! Quick!"

For the jamadar, recovering his senses, had risen to his knees fumbling at his belt groggily for his knife.

Barlow swung the pistol from its holster and rushed toward Hunsa, but the latter, at sight of the dreaded weapon, fled, pursued for a few paces by the Captain.

The girl saw the sandal soles lying upon the ground where Hunsa had dropped them in the struggle, and slipped them beneath her breast-belt, a quick thought coming to her that if the Captain saw them he might recognise them as the footwear of the soldiers. Also Hunsa had said they were for a purpose.

Barlow followed the fleeing shadow for a dozen strides, then his pistol barked, and swinging on his heel he came back, saying, with a little laugh, "That was just to frighten the beggar so he wouldn't come back."

But Bootea's eyes went wide now with a new fear; the sound of the shot would travel faster even than the fleeing Hunsa: and if the decoits came—for already they would be making ready for the road—this beautiful god, with eyes like stars and a voice of music, would be killed, would be no more than the Bagree lying on the road who was but carrion. In her heart was a new thing. The struggle with Hunsa, the fright, even the horribleness of the blood upon her knife, was washed away by a hot surging flood of exquisite happiness. The Hindu name for love—"a pain in the heart"—was veritably hers in its intensity; the sahib's arm about her when she had closed her eyes had caused her to feel as if she were being lifted to heaven.

She laid a hand on Barlow's arm and her eyes were lifted pleadingly to his: "You must go, Sahib—mount your horse and go, because—"

"Because of what?"

"There are many, and you will be killed. Hunsa will bring others."

"Others—who are they?"

But the Gulab had turned from him and was listening, her eyes turned to the road up which floated from beyond upon the hushed silence that was about them,—that seemed deeper because of the dead man lying in the moonlight,—the beat of Hunsa's feet on the road. Once there was the whining note of wheels that claimed a protest from a dry axle; once there was a clang as if steel had struck steel; and on the droning through the night-hush was a rasping hum as if voices clamoured in the distance. This was the bee-hive stirring of the startled village.

"What is it, Bootea?" Barlow asked.

The eyes raised to his face were full of fright, a pleading fright. "Sahib," she answered, "do not ask—just go, because—"

"Yes, girl, why?"

"That this is dead (and her hand gestured toward the slain Bagree) and that others are dead, is; but you,—will you mount the horse and go back the way you came, Sahib?"

Her small fingers clutched the sleeve of the coat he wore—it was of hunting cloth, red-and-green: "Others are dead yonder, and evil is in the hearts of those that live. Go, Sahib—please go."

Barlow's mind was racing fast, in more materialistic grooves than the Gulab's. There was something about it he didn't understand; something the girl did not want to tell him; some horrible thing that she was afraid of—her face was full of suppressed dread.

Suddenly, through no sequence of reasoning, in fact there was no data to go upon, nothing except that a girl—the Gulab was just that—stood there afraid—through him she had just escaped from a man who was little more than an ape—stood quivering in the moonlight alone, except for himself. So, suddenly, he acted as if energised by logic, as if mental deduction made plain the way.

"You are right," he said: "we must go."

He laid a hand upon the bridle-rein of the grey, that had stood there with the submission of a cavalry horse, saying, "Come, Bootea."

Foot in stirrup he swung to the saddle; and as the grey turned, he reached down both hands saying: "Come, I'll take you wherever you want to go."

But the girl drew back and shook her beautifully-modelled head,—the delicate head with the black hair smoothed back to simplicity, and her voice was half sob: "It can't be, Sahib, I am but—" She checked; to speak of the decoits even, might lead to talk that would cause the Sahib to go to their camp, and he would be killed; and she would be a witness to testify against her own people, the slayers of the sepoys.

Barlow laughed, "Because you are a girl who dances you are not to be saved, eh?" he said. "But listen, the Sahibs do not leave women at the mercy of villains; you must come," and his strong sun-browned hands were held out.

Bootea, wonderingly, as if some god had called to her, put her hands in Barlow's, and with a twist of his strong arms she was swung across his knees.

"Put your arms about my waist, Gulab," he said, as the grey, to the tickle of a spur, turned to the road. "Don't lean away from me," he said, presently, "because we have a long way to go and that tires. That's better, girl," as her warm breast pressed against his body.

The big grey, with a deep breath, and a sniffle of satisfaction, scenting that his head was turned homeward, paced along the ghost-strip of roadway in long free strides. Even when a jackal, or it might have been a honey-badger, slipped across the road in front, a drifting shadow, the Turcoman only rattled the snaffle-bit in his teeth, cocked his ears, and then blew a breath of disdain from his big nostrils.

In the easy swinging cradle of the horse's smooth stride the minds of both Barlow and the Gulab relaxed into restfulness; her arms about the strong body, Bootea felt as if she clung to a tower of strength—that she was part of a magnetic power; and the nightmare that had been, so short a time since, had floated into a dream of content, of glorious peace.

Barlow was troubling over the problem of the gorilla-faced man, and thinking how close he had been to death—all but gone out except for that figure in his arms that was so like a lotus; and the death would have meant not just the forfeit of his life, but that his duty, the mission he was upon for his own people, the British government, had been jeopardised by his participation in some native affair of strife, something he had nothing to do with. He had ridden along that road hoping to overtake the two riders that now lay dead in the pit with the other victims of the thugs—of which he knew nothing. They were bearing to him a secret message from his government, and he had ridden to Manabad to there take it from them lest in approaching the city of the Peshwa, full of seditious spies and cutthroats, the paper might be stolen. But at Manabad he had learned that the two had passed, had ridden on; and then, perhaps because of converging different roads, he had missed them.

But most extraordinarily, just one of the curious, tangented ways of Fate, the written order lay against his chest sewn between the double sole of a sandal. Once or twice the hard leather caused him to turn slightly the girl's body, and he thought it some case in which she carried jewels.



CHAPTER X

They had gone perhaps an eighth of a mile when the road they followed joined another, joined in an arrowhead. The grey turned to the left, to the west, the homing instinct telling him that that way lay his stall in the city of the Peshwa.

"This was the way of my journey, Bootea," Barlow said; "I rode from yonder," and he nodded back toward the highway into which the two roads wedged. "It was here that I heard your call, the call of a woman in dread. Also it might have been a business that interested me if it were a matter of waylaying travellers. Did you see two riders of large horses, such as Arabs or of the breed I ride, men who rode as do sowars?"

"No, Sahib, I did not see them."

This was not a lie for it was Ajeet who had seen them, and because of the Sahib's interest she knew the two men must have been of his command; and if she spoke of them undoubtedly he would go back and be killed.

"Were they servants of yours, Sahib—these men who rode?"

Barlow gave off but a little sliver of truth: "No," he answered; "but at Manabad men spoke of them passing this way, journeying to Poona, and if they were strangers to this district, it might be that they had taken the wrong road at the fork. But if you did not see them they will be ahead."

"And meaning, Sahib, it would not be right if they saw you bearing on your horse one who is not a memsahib?"

"As to that, Gulab, what might be thought by men of low rank is of no consequence."

"But if the Sahib wishes to overtake them my burden upon the horse will be an evil, and he will be sorry that Bootea had not shame sufficient to refuse his help."

She felt the strong arm press her body closer, and heard him laugh. But still he did not answer, did not say why he was interested in the two horsemen. If it were vital, and she believed it was, for him to know that they lay dead at the Bagree camp, it was wrong for her to not tell him this, he who was a preserver. But to tell him would send him to his death. She knew, as all the people of that land knew, that the sahibs went where their Raja told them was their mission, and laughed at death; and the face of this one spoke of strength, and the eyes of placid fearlessness; so she said nothing.

The sandal soles that pinched her soft flesh she felt were a reproach—they had something to do with the thing that was between the Sahib and the dead soldiers. There were tears in her eyes and she shivered.

Barlow, feeling this, said: "You're cold, Gulab, the night-wind that comes up from the black muck of the cotton fields and across the river is raw. Hang on for a minute," he added, as he slipped his arm from about her shoulders and fumbled at the back of his saddle. A couple of buckles were unclasped, and he swung loose a warm military cloak and wrapped it about her, as he did so his cheek brushing hers.

Then she was like a bird lying against his chest, closed in from everything but just this Sahib who was like a god.

A faint perfume lingered in Barlow's nostrils from the contact; it was the perfume of attar, of the true oil of rose, such as only princes use because of its costliness, and he wondered a little.

She saw his eyes looking down into hers, and asked, "What is it, Sahib—what disturbs you? If it is a question, ask me."

His white teeth gleamed in the moonlight. "Just nothing that a man should bother over—that he should ask a woman about."

But almost involuntarily he brushed his face across her black hair and said, "Just that, Gulab—that it's like burying one's nose in a rose."

"The attar, Sahib? I love it because it's gentle."

"Ah, that's why you wore the rose that I came by at the nautch?"

"Yes, Sahib. Though I am Bootea, because of a passion for the rose I am called Gulab."

"Lovely—the Rose! that's just what you are, Gulab. But the attar is so costly! Are you a princess in disguise?"

"No, Sahib, but one brought me many bottles of it, the slim, long bottles like a finger; and a drop of it lasts for a moon."

"Ah, I see," and Barlow smiled; "you have for lover a raja, the one who brought the attar."

The figure in the cloak shivered again, but the girl said nothing. And Barlow, rather to hear her voice, for it was sweet like flute music, chaffed: "What is he like, the one that you love? A swaggering tall black-whiskered Rajput, no doubt, with a purple vest embroidered in gold, clanking with tulwar, and a voice like a Brahmini bull—full of demand."

The slim arms about his waist tightened a little—that was all.

"Confess, Gulab, it will pass the time; a love story is sweet, and Brahm, who creates all things, creates flowers beautiful and sweet to stir love," and he shook the small body reassuringly.

"Sahib, when a girl dances before the great ones to please, it is permitted that she may play at being a princess to win the favour of a raja, and sing the love song to the music of the sitar (guitar), but it is a matter of shame to speak it alone to the Presence."

"Tell me, Gulab," and his strong fingers swept the smooth black hair.

The girl unclasped her arms from about Barlow's waist and led his finger to a harsh iron bracelet upon her arm.

At the touch of the cold metal, iron emblem of a child marriage, a shackle never to be removed, he knew that she was a widow, accounted by Brahminical caste an offence to the gods, an outcast, because if the husband still lived she would be in a zenanna of gloomy walls, and not one who danced as she had at Nana Sahib's.

"And the man to whom you were bound by your parents died?" he asked.

"I am a widow, Sahib, as the iron bracelet testifies with cold bitterness; it is the badge of one who is outcast, of one who has not become sati, has not sat on the wood to find death in its devouring flame."

Barlow knew all the false logic, the metaphysical Machiavellians, the Brahmins, advanced to thin out the undesirable females,—women considered at all times in that land of overpopulation of less value than men,—by the simple expedient of self-destruction. He knew the Brahmins' thesis culled from their Word of God, the Vedas or the Puranas, calculated to make the widow a voluntary, willing suicide. They would tell Bootea that owing to having been evil in former incarnations her sins had been visited upon her husband, had caused his death; that in a former life she had been a snake, or a rat.

The dead husband's mother, had Bootea come of an age to live with him, though yet but a child of twelve years, would, on the slightest provocation, beat her—even brand her with a hot iron; he had known of it having been done. She would be given but one meal a day—rice and chillies. Even if she had not yet left her father's house he would look upon her as a shameful thing, an undesirable member of the family, one not to be rid of again in the way of marriage; for if a Hindu married her it would break his caste—he would be a veritable pariah. No servant would serve him; no man would sell him anything; if he kept a shop no one would buy of him; no one would sit and speak with him—he would be ostracised.

The only life possible for the girl would be that of a prostitute. She might be married by the temple priests to the god Khandoka, as thousands of widows had been, and thus become a nun of the temple, a prostitute to the celibate priests. Knowing all this, and that Bootea was what she was, her face and eyes holding all that sweetness and cleanness, that she lived in the guardianship of Ajeet Singh, very much a man, Barlow admired her the more in that she had escaped moral destruction. Her face was the face of one of high caste; she was not like the ordinary nautch girl of the fourth caste. Everything about Bootea suggested breeding, quality. The iron bracelet, indicated why she had socially passed down the scale—there was no doubt about it.

"I understand, Gulab," he said; "the Sahibs all understand, and know that widowhood is not a reproach."

"But the Sahib questioned of love; and how can one such know of love? The heart starves and does not grow for it feeds upon love—what we of Hind call the sweet pain in the heart."

"But have none been kind, Gulab—pleased by your flower face, has no one warmed your heart?"

The slim arms that gripped Barlow in a new tightening trembled, the face that fled from the betraying moonlight was buried against his tunic, and the warm body quivered from sobs.

Barlow turned her face up, and the moonlight showed vagrant pearls that lay against the olive cheeks, now tinted like the petals of a rose. Then from a service point of view, and as a matter of caste, Barlow went ghazi. He drooped his head and let his lips linger against the girl's eyes, and uttered a superb common-place: "Don't cry, little girl," he said; "I am seven kinds of a brute to bother you!"

And Bootea thought it would have been better if he had driven a knife into her heart, and sobbed with increased bitterness. Once her fingers wandered up searchingly and touched his throat.

Barlow casting about for the wherefore of his madness, discovered the moonlight, and heard the soft night-air whispering through the harp chords of trees that threw a tracery of black lines across the white road; and from a grove of mango trees came the gentle scent of their blossoms; and he remembered that statistics had it that there was but one memsahib to so many square miles in that land of expatriation; and he knew that he was young and full of the joy of life; that a British soldier was not like a man of Hind who looked upon women as cattle.

There did not obtrude into his mental retrospect as an accusation against this unwarrantable tenderness the vision of the Resident's daughter—almost his fiancee. Indeed Elizabeth was the antithesis in physical appeal of the gentle Gulab; the drawing-room perhaps; repartee of Damascus steel fineness; tutored polish, class, cold integrity—these things associated admirably with the unsensuous Elizabeth. Thoughts of her, remembrances, had no place in glamorous perfumed moonlight.

So he set his teeth and admonished the grey Turcoman, called him the decrepit son of a donkey, being without speed; and to punish him stroked his neck gently: even this forced diversion bringing him closer to the torturing sweetness of the girl.

But now he was aware of a throbbing on the night wind, and a faint shrill note that lay deep in the shadows beyond. It was a curious rumbling noise, as though ghosts of the hills on the right were playing bowls with rounded rocks. And the shrilling skirl grew louder as if men marched behind bagpipes.

The Gulab heard it, too, and her body stiffened, her head thrust from the enveloping cloak, and her eyes showed like darkened sapphires.

"Carts carrying cotton perhaps," he said. But presently he knew that small cotton carts but rattled, the volume of rumbling was as if an army moved.

From up the road floated the staccato note of a staff beating its surface, and the clanking tinkle of an iron ring against the wooden staff.

"A mail-carrier," Barlow said.

And then to the monotonous pat-pat-pat of trotting feet the mail-carrier emerged from the grey wall of night.

"Here, you, what comes?" the Captain queried, checking the grey.

The postie stopped in terror at the English voice.

"Salaam, Bahadur Sahib; it is war."

"Thou art a tree owl," and Barlow laughed. "A war does not spring up like a drift of driven dust. Is it some raja's elephants and carts with his harem going to a durbar?"

"Sahib, it is, as I have said, war. The big brass cannon that is called 'The Humbler of Cities,' goes forth to speak its order, and with it are sepoys to feed it the food of destruction. Beyond that I know not, Sahib, for I am a man of peace, being but a runner of the post."

Then he salaamed and sifted into the night gloom like a thrown handful of white sand, echoing back the clamp-clamp-clamp of his staff's iron ring, which was a signal to all cobras to move from the path of him who ran, slip their chilled folds from the warm dust of the road.

And on in front what had been sounds of mystery was now a turmoil of noises. The hissing screech, the wails, were the expostulations of tortured axles; the rumbling boom was unexplainable; but the jungle of the hillside was possessed of screaming devils. Black-faced, white-whiskered monkeys roused by the din, screamed cries of hate and alarm as they scurried in volplaning leaps from tree to tree. And peacocks, awakened when they should have slept, called with their harsh voices from lofty perches.

A party of villagers hurried by, shifting their cheap turbans to hide faces as they scurried along.

The Gulab was trembling; perhaps the decoits, led by Hunsa, had come by a shorter way; for they were like beasts of the jungle in this art of silent, swift travel.

"Sahib," she pleaded, "go from the road."

"Why, Bootea?"

"The one with the staff spoke of soldiers."

He laughed and patted her shoulder. "Don't fear, little lady," he said, "an army doesn't make war upon one, even if they are soldiers. It will be but a wedding party who now take the wife to the village of her husband."

"Not at night; and a Sahib who carries a woman upon his saddle will hear words of offence."

Though Barlow laughed he was troubled. What if the smouldering fire of sedition had flared up, and that even now men of Sindhia's were slipping on a night march toward some massing of rebels. The resonant, heavy moaning of massive wheels was like the rumble of a gun carriage. And, too, there was the drumming of many hoofs upon the road. Barlow's ear told him it was the rhythmic beat of cavalry horses, not the erratic rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat of native ponies.

With a pressure upon the rein he edged the grey from the white road to a fringe of bamboo and date palms, saying; "If you will wait here, Gulab, I'll see what this is all about."

He slipped from the saddle and lifted her gently to the ground saying, "Don't move; of a certainty it is nothing but the passing of some raja. But, if by any chance I don't return, wait until all is still, until all have gone, and then some well-disposed driver of a bullock cart will take you on your way." Putting his hand in his pocket, and drawing it forth, he added: "Here is the compeller of friendship—silver; for a bribe even an enemy will become a friend."

But the Gulab with her slim fingers closed his hand over the rupees, and pressed the back of it against her lips saying, "If I die it is nothing. But stay here, Sahib, they may be—"

She stopped, and he asked, "May be who, Gulab?"

"Men who will harm thee."

But Barlow lifting to the saddle passed to the road, and Bootea crumpled down in a little desolate heap of misery, her fingers thrust within her bodice, pleading with an amulet for protection for the Sahib. She prayed to her own village god to breathe mercy into the hearts of those who marched in war, and if it were the Bagrees, that Bhowanee would vouchsafe them an omen that to harm the one on a white horse would bring her wrath upon their families and their villages.

Captain Barlow reined in the grey on the roadside, for those that marched were close. Now he could see, two abreast, horses that carried cavalry men. Ten couples of the troop rode by with low-voiced exchanges of words amongst themselves. A petty officer rode at their heels, and behind him, on a bay Arab, whose sweated skin glistened like red wine in the moonlight, came a risiladar, the commander of the troop. A little down the road Barlow could see an undulating, swaying huge ribbon of white-and-pink bullocks, twenty-four yoke of the tall lean-flanked powerful Amrit Mahal, the breed that Hyder Ali long ago had brought on his conquering way to the land of the Mahrattas. And beyond the ghost-like line of white creatures was some huge thing that they drew.

The commander reined his Arab to a stand beside Barlow and saluted, saying, "Salaam, Major Sahib—you ride alone?"

Barlow said: "My salaams, Risiladar, and I am but a captain. I ride at night because the days are hot. My two men have gone before me because my horse dropped a shoe which had to be replaced. Did the Risiladar see my two servants that were mounted?"

"I met none such," the commander answered. "Perhaps in some village they have rested for a drink of liquor; they of the army are given to such practices when their Captain's eye is not upon them. I go with this"—and he waved a gauntleted hand back toward the thing that loomed beyond the bullocks that had now come to a halt. "It is the brass cannon, the like of which there is no other. We go to the camp of the Amil, who commands the Sindhia troops, taking him the brass cannon that it may compel a Musselman zemindar to pay the tax that is long past due. Why the barbarian should not pay I know not for a tax of one-fourth is not much for a foreigner, a debased follower of Mahomet, to render unto the ruler of this land that is the garden of the world. He has shut himself and men up in his mud fort, but when this brass mother of destruction spits into his stronghold a ball or two that is not opium he will come forth or we will enter by the gate the cannon has made."

"Then there will be bloodshed, Risiladar," Barlow declared.

"True, Captain Sahib; but that is, after a manner, the method of collecting just dues in this land where those who till the soil now, were, but a generation or two since, men of the sword,—they can't forget the traditions. In the land of the British Raj six inches of a paper, with a big seal duly affixed, would do the business. That I know, for I have travelled far, Sahib. As to the bloodshed, worse will be the trampling of crops, for in the district of this worshipper of Mahomet the wheat grows like wild scrub in the jungle, taller than up to the belly of my horse. That is the whyfore of the cannon, in a way of speaking, because from a hill we can send to this man a slaying message, and leave the wheat standing to fill the bellies of those who are in his hands as a tyrant. Sirdar Baptiste was for sending a thousand sepoys to put the fear of destruction in the debtor; but the Dewan with his eye on revenue from crops, hit upon this plan of the loud-voiced one of brass."

Then the commander ordered the advance, and saluting, said: "Salaam, Captain Sahib, and if I meet with your servants I will give them news that you desire their presence."

When the huge cannon had rumbled by, and behind it had passed a company of sepoys on foot, Barlow turned his horse into the jungle for Gulab.



CHAPTER XI

Bootea's eyes glistened like stars when, lowering a hand, Barlow said: "Put a foot upon mine, Gulab, and I'll swing you up."

When they were on the road she said; "I saw them. It is as the runner said, war—is it so, Sahib?"

"The Captain says that he goes to collect revenue, but it may be that he spoke a lie, for it is said that a man of the land of the Five Rivers, which is the Punjaub, has five ways of telling a tale, and but one of them is the truth and comes last."

The girl pondered over this for a little, and then asked; "Does the Sahib think perhaps it is war against his people?"

That was just what was in Barlow's mind since he had seen the big gun going forth at night; that perhaps the plot that was just a whisper, fainter than the hum of a humming bird's wing, was moving with swift silent velocity.

"Why do you ask that question? Have you heard from lips—perhaps loosened by wine or desire—aught of this?"

When she remained without answer, Barlow tapped his fingers lightly upon her shoulder, saying, "Tell me, girl."

"I have heard nothing of war," she said. "There was a something though that men whispered in the dark."

"What was it?"

"It was of the Chief of the Pindaris."

She felt the quivering start that ran through Barlow's body; but he said quietly: "With the Pindaris there is always trouble. Something of robbery—of a raid, was it?"

"I will listen again to those that whisper in the dark," she answered, "and perhaps if it concerns you, for your protection, I will tell."

"I hope those men didn't fall in with my two chaps," Barlow said, rather voicing his thoughts than in the way of speaking to the girl.

"The two who rode—they were the Captain Sahib's servants?"

Barlow started. "Yes, they were: I suppose I can trust you."

"And the Sahib is troubled? Perhaps it was a message for the Sahib that they carried."

"I don't know," he answered, evasively. "I was thinking that perhaps they might be messengers, for our sepoys are not stationed here, and come but on such errands."

"And if they were lulled, and the message stolen, it would cause trouble?"

She felt him tremble as he looked down into her eyes.

"I don't know. But the messages of a Raj are not for the ears of men to whom they have not been sent."

Barlow had an intuition that the girl's words were not prompted by idle curiosity. He was possessed of a sudden gloomy impression that she knew something of the two men who rode. And it was strange that they had not been seen upon either of the roads. The officer spoke of them frankly, and not as a man hiding something.

Suddenly he took a firm resolve, perhaps a dangerous one; not dangerous though if his men had really gone through.

"Gulab," he said,—and with his hand he turned her face up by the chin till their eyes were close together,—"if the two bore a message for me, and it was stolen, I would be like that one you loved was lost."

The beautiful face swung from his palm and he could hear her gasping.

"You know something?" he said, and he caressed the smooth black tresses.

"I did not see them, Sahib."

They rode in silence for half a mile and then she said, "Perhaps, Sahib, Bootea can help you—if the message is lost."

"And you will, girl?"

"I will, Sahib; even if I die for doing it, I will."

His arm tightened about her with a shrug of assuring thankfulness, and she knew that this man trusted her and was not sorry of her burden. Little child-dreams floated through her mind that the silver-faced moon would hang there above and light the world forever,—for the moon was the soul of the god Purusha whose sacrificed body had created the world,—and that she would ride forever in the arms of this fair-faced god, and that they were both of one caste, the caste that had as mark the sweet pain in the heart.

And Barlow was sometimes dropping the troubled thought of the missing order and the turmoil that would be in the Council of the Governor General when it became known, to mutter inwardly: "By Jove! if the chaps get wind of this, that I carried the Gulab throughout a moonlit night, there'll be nothing for me but to send in my papers. I'll be drawn;—my leg'll be pulled." And he reflected bitterly that nothing on earth, no protestation, no swearing by the gods, would make it believed as being what it was. He chuckled once, picturing the face of the immaculate Elizabeth while she thrust into him a bodkin of moral autopsy, should she come to know of it.

Bootea thought he had sighed, and laying her slim fingers against his neck said, "The Sahib is troubled."

"I don't care a damn!" he declared in English, his mind still on the personal trail.

Seeing that she, not understanding, had taken the sharp tone as a rebuke, he said, "If I had been alone, Gulab, I'd have been troubled sorely, but perhaps the gods have sent you to help out."

"Ah, yes, God pulled our paths together. And if Bootea is but a sacrifice that will be a favour, she is happy."

If the girl had been of a white race, in her abandon of love she would have laid her lips against his, but the women of Hind do not kiss.

The big plate of burnished silver slid, as if pushed by celestial fingers, across the azure dome toward the loomed walls of the Ghats that it would cross to dip into the sea, the Indian Ocean, and mile upon mile was picked from the front and laid behind by the grey as he strode with untiring swing toward his bed that waited on the high plateau of Poona.

The night-jars, even the bats, had stilled their wings and slept in the limbs of the neem or the pipal, and the air that had borne the soft perfume of blossoms, and the pungent breath of jasmine, had chilled and grown heavy from the pressure of advancing night.

The two on the grey rode sleepily; the Gulab warm and happy, cuddled in the protecting cloak, and Barlow grim, oppressed by fatigue and the mental strain of feared disaster. Now the muscles of the horse rippled in heavier toil, and his hoofs beat the earth in shorted stride; the way was rising from the plain as it approached the plateau that was like an immense shelf let into the wall of the world above the lowland; a shelf that held jewels, topaz and diamonds, that glinted their red and yellow lights, and upon which rested giant pearls, the moonlight silvering the domes and minarets of white palaces and mosques of Poona. The dark hill upon which rested the Temple of Parvati threw its black outline against the sky, and like a burnished helmet glowed the golden dome beneath which sat the alabaster goddess. At their feet, strung out between forbidding banks of clay and sand, ran a molten stream of silver, the sleepy waters of the Muta.

"By Jove!" and Barlow, suddenly cognisant that he had practically arrived at the end of his ride, that the windmill of Don Quixote stood yonder on the hill, realised that in a sense, so far as Bootea was concerned, he had just drifted. Now he asked: "I'm afraid, little girl, your Sahib is somewhat of a fool, for I have not asked where you want me to take you."

"Yonder, Sahib," and her eyes were turned toward the jewelled hill.

As they rose to the hilltop that was a slab of rock and sand carrying a city, he asked: "Where shall I put you down that will be near your place of rest, your friends?"

"Is there a memsahib in the home of the Sahib?" she asked.

"No, Bootea, not so lucky—nobody but servants."

"Then I will go to the bungalow of the Sahib."

"Confusion!" he exclaimed in moral trepidation.

Bootea's hand touched his arm, and she turned her face inward to hide the hot flush that lay upon it. "No, Sahib, not because of Bootea; one does not sleep in the lap of a god."

"All right, girl," he answered—"sorry."

As the grey plodded tiredly down the avenue of trees, a smooth road bordered by a hedge of cactus and lanten, Barlow turned him to the right up a drive of broken stone, and dropping to the ground at the verandah of a white-waited bungalow, lifted the girl down, saying: "Within it can be arranged for a rest place for you."

A chowkidar, lean, like a mummified mendicant, rose up from a squeaking, roped charpoy and salaamed.

"Take the horse to the stable, Jungwa, and tell the syce to undress him. Remember to keep that monkey tongue of yours between your teeth for in my room hangs a bitter whip. It is a lie that I have not ridden home alone," Barlow commanded.



CHAPTER XII

As Barlow led the Gulab within the bungalow she drew, as a veil, a light silk scarf across her face.

Upon the floor of the front room a bearer, head buried in yards of pink cotton cloth, his puggri, lay fast asleep.

As Barlow raised a foot to touch the sleeper in the ribs the girl drew him back, put the tips of her finger to her lips, and pointed toward the bedroom door.

Barlow shook his head, the flickering flame of the wick in an iron oil-lamp that rested in a niche of the wall exaggerating to ferocity the frown that topped his eyes.

But Bootea pleaded with a mute salaam, and raising her lips to his ear whispered, "Not because of what is not permitted—not because of Bootea—please."

With an arm he swept back the beaded tendrils of a hanging door-curtain, the girl glided to the darkness of the room, and Barlow, lifting from its niche the iron lamp, followed. Within, she pointed to the door that lay open and Barlow, half in rebellion, softly closed it. As he turned he saw that she had dropped from their holding cords the heavy brocaded silk curtains of the window.

His limbs were numb from the long ride with the weight of the girl's body across his thighs; he was tired; he was mentally distressed over the messengers he had failed to locate, and this, the almost forced intrusion of Bootea into his bedroom, the closed door and the curtained windows, her doing, was just another turn of the kaleidoscope with its bits of broken glass of a nightmare. He dropped wearily into a big cane-bottomed Hindu chair, saying; "Little wilted rose, cuddle up on that divan among the cushions and rest, while you tell me why we sit in purdah."

The girl dragged a cushion from the divan, and placing it on the floor beside his chair, sat on it, curling her feet beneath her knees.

Barlow groaned inwardly. If his mind had not been so lethargic because of the things that weighted it, like the leaden soles upon a diver's boots, he would have roused himself to say, "Look here, a chap can't pull a girl who is as sweet as a flower and as trusting as a babe, out of trouble and then make bazaar love to her; he can't do it if he's any sort of a chap." All this was casually in his mind, but he let his tired eyes droop, and his hand that hung over the teak-wood arm of the chair rested upon the girl's shoulder.

"Bootea will soon go so that the Sahib may sleep, for he is tired," she said; "but first there is something to be said, and I have come close to the Sahib because men not alone whisper in the dark but they listen."

The hand that rested on Bootea's shoulder lifted to her cheek, and strong fingers caressed its oval.

"Would the Sahib sleep, and would his mind rest if he knew where the two who rode are?"

Barlow sat bolt upright in the chair, roused, the lethargy gone, as if he had poured raw whisky down his throat. And he was glad, the closed door and the drawn curtains were not now things of debasement. Curious that he should care what this little Hindu maid was like, but he did. His hand now clasped the girl's wrist, it almost hurt in its tenseness.

"Yes, Gulab,"—and he subdued his voice,—"tell me if you know."

"They are dead upon the road beyond where you saved Bootea."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"It was too late, Sahib; and if you had gone there they would have killed you."

"Who?"

"That, I cannot tell."

"You must, Gulab."

"No, Bootea will not."

Barlow stared angrily into the big eyes that were lifted to his, that though they lingered in soft loving upon his face, told him that she would not tell, that she would die first; even as he would have given his life if he had been captured by tribesmen and asked to betray his fellow men as the price of liberty.

He threw himself back wearily in the chair. "Why tell me this now,—to mock me, to exult?" he said, reproach in his voice.

"But it is the message, Sahib, that is more than the life of a sepoy, is it not?"

Again he sat up: "Why do you say this—do you know where it is?"

She drew from beneath her bodice the sandal soles, saying: "These are from the feet of the messenger who is dead. The one the Sahib beat over the head with his pistol dropped them,—and he was carrying them for a purpose. The Sahib knows, perhaps, the secret way of this land."

In the girl's hand was clasped the knife from her girdle, and she tendered it, hilt first: "Bootea knows not if they are of value, the leather soles, but if the Sahib would open them, then if there are eyes that watch the curtains are drawn."

Barlow revivified, stimulated by hope, seized the knife and ran its sharp point around the stitching of the soles. Between the double leather of one lay a thin, strong parchment-like paper.

He gave a cry of exultation as, unfolding it, he saw the seal of his Raj. His cry was a gasp of relief. Almost the shatterment of his career had lain in that worn discoloured sole, and disaster to his Raj if it had fallen into the hands of the conspirators.

In an ecstasy of relief he sprang to his feet, and lifting Bootea, clasped her in his arms, smothering her face in kisses, whispering: "Gulab, you are my preserver; you are the sweetest rose that ever bloomed!"

He felt the pound of her heart against his breast, and her eyes mirrored a happiness that caused him to realise that he was going too far—drifting into troubled waters that threatened destruction. The girl's soul had risen to her eyes and looked out as though he were a god.

As if Bootea sensed the same impending evil she pushed Barlow from her and sank back to the cushion, her face shedding its radiancy.

Cursing himself for the impetuous outburst Barlow slumped into the chair.

"Gulab," he said presently, "my government gives reward for loyalty and service."

"Bootea has had full reward," the girl answered.

He continued: "We had talk on the road about the Pindaris; what did they who whisper in the dark say?"

"That the chief, Amir Khan, has gathered an army, and they fear that because of an English bribe he will attack the Mahrattas; so the Dewan has brought men from Karowlee to go into the camp of the Pindaris in disguise and slay the chief for a reward."

This information coming from Bootea was astounding. Neither Resident Hodson nor Captain Barlow had suspected that there had been a leak.

"And was there talk of this message from the British to—?" Barlow checked.

"To the Sahib?" Bootea asked. "Not of the message; but it was whispered that one would go to the Pindari camp to talk with Amir Khan, and perhaps it was the Sahib they meant. And perhaps they knew he waited for orders from the government."

Then suddenly it flashed upon Barlow that because of this he had been marked. The foul riding in the game of polo that so nearly put him out of commission—it had been deliberately foul, he knew that, but he had attributed it to a personal anger on the part of the Mahratta officer, bred of rivalry in the game and the fanatical hate of an individual Hindu for an Englishman.

"Now that a message has come will the Sahib go to the Pindari camp?" Bootea persisted.

"Why do you ask, Gulab?"

"Not in the way of treachery, but because the Sahib is now like a god; and because I may again be of service, for those who will slay Amir Khan will also slay the Sahib."

"Gulab,—"

Barlow's voice was drowned by yells of terror in the outer room.

"Thieves! Thieves have broken in to rob, and they have stolen my lamp! Chowkidar, chowkidar! wake, son of a pig!"

It was the bearer, who, suddenly wakened by some noise, had in the dark groped for his lamp and found it missing.

"Heavens!" the Captain exclaimed. "Now the cook house will be empty—the servants will come!" He rubbed a hand perplexedly over his forehead. "Quick, Gulab, you must hide!"

He swung open a wooden door between his room and a bedroom next. Within he said: "There's a bed, and you must sleep here till daylight, then I will have the chowkidar take you to where you wish to go. You couldn't go in the dark anyway. Bar the door; you will be quite safe; don't be frightened." He touched her cheek with his fingers: "Salaam, little girl." Then, going out, he opened the door leading to the room of clamour, exclaiming angrily, "You fool, why do you scream in your dreams?"

"God be thanked! it is the Sahib." The bearer flopped to his knees and put his hands in abasement upon his master's feet.

Jungwa had rushed into the room, staff in hand, at the outcry. Now he stood glowering indignantly upon the grovelling bearer.

"It is the opium, Sahib," he declared; "this fool spends all his time in the bazaar smoking with people of ill repute. If the Presence will but admonish him with the whip our slumbers will not again be disturbed."

The bearer, running true to the tenets of native servants, put up the universal alibi—a flat denial.

"Sahib, you who are my father and my mother, be not angry, for I have not slept. I observed the Sahib pass, but as he spoke not, I thought he had matters of import upon his mind and wished not to be disturbed."

"A liar—by Mother Gunga!" The chowkidar prodded him in the ribs with the end of his staff, and turning in disgust, passed out.

"Come, you fool!" Barlow commanded, returning to his room, and, sitting down wearily upon the bed, held up a leg.

The bearer knelt and in silence stripped the putties from his master's limbs, unlaced the shoes, and pulled off the breeches.

When Barlow had slipped on the pyjamas handed him, he said: "Tell the chowkidar to come to me at his waking from the first call of the crows."



CHAPTER XIII

An omen of dire import all thugs believe is to hear the cry of a kite between midnight and dawn; to hear it before midnight does not matter, for the sleeper in turning over smothers the impending disaster beneath his body. But Captain Barlow had put up no such defence if evil hung over him, for when the chowkidar stood outside the door calling softly, "Captain Sahib! Captain Sahib!" Barlow lay just as he had flopped on the bed, his tiredness having held him as one dead.

Gently the soft voice of the chowkidar pulled him back out of his Nirvana of non-existence, and he called sleepily, "What is it?"

"It is Jungwa," the watchman answered, "and I have received the Sahib's order to come at this hour."

Then Barlow remembered. He swung his feet to the floor, saying, "Come!"

When the watchman had walked out of his sandals to approach in his bare feet, the Captain said, "Is your tongue still to remain in your mouth, Jungwa, or has it been made sacrifice to the knife for the sin of telling in the cookhouse tales of your Sahib and last night?"

"No, Sahib, I have not spoken. I am a Meena of the Ossary jat. In Jaipur we guard the treasury and the zenanna of the Raja, and it is our chief who puts the tika upon the forehead of the Maharaja when he ascends to the throne. Think you, then, Sahib, that an Ossary would betray a trust?"

Barlow fixed the lean saffron-hued face with a searching look, and muttered, "Damned if I don't believe the old chap is straight!" "I think it is true," he said. "Shut the door." Then he continued: "The one who came last night is in the next room and you must take her out through the bathroom door, for there is cover of the crotons and oleanders, and then to the road. Acquire a gharry and go with her to where she directs you."

"Salaam, Sahib! your servant will obey. And as to the chota hazri, Sahib?"

"By Jove! right you are, Jungwa"; for Barlow had forgotten that—the little breakfast, as it was called.

Then he ran his fingers through his hair. To send the Gulab off without even a cup of tea was one thing; to admit the bearer to know of her presence was another.

The wily old watchman sensed what was passing in his master's mind, and he hazarded, diplomatically, "If the One is of high caste she will not eat what is brought by the bearer who is of the Sudra caste, but from the hands of a Meena none but the Brahmin pundits refuse food."

Barlow laughed; indeed the grizzled one had perception—he was an accomplice in the plot of secrecy.

"Good! Eggs and toast and tea. Demand plenty—say your Sahib is hungry because of a long ride and nothing to eat. But hurry, I hear the 'seven sisters' (crows) calling to sleepers that the sun is here with its warmth."

Then the bearer entered, but Barlow ordered him away, saying, "Sit without till I call."

As he slipped into breeches and brown riding boots he cursed softly the entanglement that had thrust upon him this thing of ill flavour. Of course the watchman, even if he did keep his mouth shut, which would be a miracle in that land of bazaar gossip, would have but one opinion of why Bootea had spent the night in the bungalow. But if Barlow squared this by speaking of a secret mission, that would be a knowledge that could be exchanged for gold. Perhaps not all servants were spies, but there were always spies among servants.

"Damn the thing!" he muttered; but he was helpless. The old man would give no sign of what, no doubt, was in his mind; he would hold that leathery face in placid acquiescence in prevalent moral vagary.

Then he tapped lightly on the wooden door, calling softly, "Bootea—Bootea!"

When it was opened he said: "Food is coming, Gulab. A man of caste brings it, and it is but eggs from which no life has been taken, so you may eat. Then the chowkidar will go with you."

Jungwa brought the breakfast and put it down, saying, "I will wait, Sahib, outside the bathroom door."

"Here is money—ten rupees for whatever is needed. Be courteous to the lady, for she is not a nautchni."

"The Sahib would entertain none such," the chowkidar answered with a grave salaam.

"Damn the thing!" Barlow groaned.



CHAPTER XIV

An hour later Barlow, mounted on a stalky Cabuli polo-pony, rode to the Residency, happy over the papers in his pocket, but troubling over how he could explain their possession and keep the girl out of it. To even mention the Gulab, unless he fabricated a story, would let escape the night-ride, and, no doubt, in the perversity of things, Resident Hodson would want to know where she was and where he had taken her, and insist on having her produced for an official inquisition. The Resident, a machine, would sacrifice a native woman without a tremor to the official gods.

Barlow could formulate no plausible method; he could not hide the death of the two native messengers, and would simply have to take the stand of, "Here is this message from His Excellency and as to how I came by it is of as little importance as an order from the War Office regulating the colour of thread that attaches buttons to a tunic."

He turned the Cabuli up the wide drive that led to the Residency, the big white walled bungalow in which Hodson lived, and shook his riding crop toward Elizabeth who was reading upon the verandah. He swung from the saddle, and held out his hand to the girl, saying cheerily, "Hello, Beth! Didn't you ride this morning, or are you back early?"

The novel seemed to require support of the girl's hand, or she had not observed that of the caller. Her face, always emotionless, was repellent in its composure as she said; "Father is just inside in his office with a native, and I fancy it's one of the usual dark things of mystery, for he asked me to sit here by the window that he might have both air and privacy; I'm to warn off all who might stand here against the wall with an open ear."

"I'll pull a chair up and chat to you till he's—"

"No, Captain Barlow—" Barlow winced at this formality—"Father, I'm sure, wants you in this matter; in fact, I think a chuprassi is on his way now to your bungalow with the Resident's salaams."

Barlow laid his fingers on the girl's shoulder: "I'm ghastly tired, Beth. I'll come back to you."

"Yes, India is enervating," she commented in a flat tone.

Barlow had a curious impression that the girl's grey eyes had turned yellow as she made this observation.

"Ah, Captain, glad you've come," Hodson said, rising and extending a hand across a flat-topped desk. "I'm—I'm—well—pull a chair. This is one Ajeet Singh," and he drooped slightly his thin, lean, bald head toward the Bagree Chief, who stood stiff and erect, one arm in a sling.

At this, Ajeet, knowing it for an informal introduction, put his hand to his forehead, and said, "Salaam, Sahib."

"Tulwar play, sir, and an appeal for protection to the British, eh?" and Barlow indicated the arm in the sling.

Still speaking in English Hodson said: "As to that,—" he pursed his thin lips,—"something dreadful has happened; this man has been mixed up in a decoity and has come for protection; he wants to turn Approver."

"The usual thing; when these cut-throats are likely to be caught they turn Judas; to save their own necks they offer a sacrifice of their comrades."

"Yes," the Resident affirmed, "but I'm glad he came. Perhaps we had better just sit tight and let him go on—he's only nicely started. I've practically promised him that if what he confesses is of service to His Excellency's government I will give him our conditional pardon, and use what influence I have with the Peshwa. But I fancy that old Baji Rao is mixed up in it himself."

He turned to the decoit: "Commence again, and tell the truth; and if I believe, you may be given protection from the British; but as to Sindhia I have no power to protect his criminals."

The decoit cleared his throat and began: "I, Ajeet Singh, hold allegiance to the Raja of Karowlee, and am Chief of the Bagrees, who are decoits."

The Resident held up his hand: "Have patience." He rose, and took from a little cabinet a small alabaster figure of Kali which he placed upon the table, saying in English to Barlow, "When these decoits confess to be made Approvers, half of the confession is lies, for to swear them on our Bible is as little use as playing a tin whistle. If he's a Bagree this is his goddess."

In Hindi he said: "Ajeet Singh, if you are a Bagree decoit you are in the protection of Bhowanee, and you make oath to her."

"Yes, Sahib."

"This is Bhowanee,—that is your name for Kali,—and with obeisance to her make oath that you will tell the truth."

"Yes, Sahib, it is the proper way."

"Proceed."

The jamadar with the fingers of his two hands clasped to his forehead in obeisance, declared: "If I, Ajeet Singh, tell that which is not true, Mother Kali, may thy wrath fall upon me and my family."

Then Hodson shifted the black goddess and let it remain upon a corner of his table, surmising that the sight of it would help.

"Speak, now," the Resident commanded; and the Jamadar proceeded.

"Dewan Sewlal sent to Raja Karowlee for men for a mission, and whether it was in the letter he sent that thugs should come I know not, but in our party were thugs, and that led to why I am here."

"What is the difference, Ajeet," Hodson asked sharply. "You are a decoit who robs and kills, and thugs kill and rob; you are both disciples of this murderous creature, Kali."

"We who are decoits, while we make offerings to Kali, are not thugs. They have a chief mission of murder, while we have but desire to gain for our families from the rich. The thugs came in this wise, sahib. Bhowanee created them from the sweat of her arms, and gave to them her tooth for a pick-axe, which is their emblem, a rib for a knife, and the hem of her garment for a noose to strangle. The hem of her sacred garment was yellow-and-white, and the roomal that they strangle with is yellow-and-white. They are thugs, Sahib, and we are decoits."

"A fine distinction, sir," and Barlow laughed.

"Proceed," Hodson commanded.

"We were told by the Dewan to go to the camp of the Pindaris and bring back the head of Amir Khan."

"Lovely!" Barlow muttered softly; but Hodson started,—a slight rouge crept over his pale face and he said, "By Gad! this grows interesting, my dear Captain."

"Absolutely Oriental," Barlow added.

Then when their voices had stilled Ajeet continued: "But Hunsa had ridden with the Pindari Chief and he knew that he was well guarded, and that it would be impossible to bring his head in a basket, so we refused to go on this mission. The Dewan was angry and would not give us food or pay. Through Hunsa the Dewan sent word that we must obtain our living in the way of our profession, which is decoity."

"I wonder," Barlow queried.

But Hodson, nodding his head said: "Quite possible; and also quite probable that the dear avaricious Dewan would claim a share of the loot if it were of value, jewels especially." He addressed Ajeet, "I have nothing to do with this; I am not Sindhia."

"True, Sahib Bahadur, but a decoity was made upon a merchant on the road and he and his men were killed, but also two English sowars were slain."

"By heavens!" The cool, trained, bloodless machine, that was a British Resident at a court of intrigue, was startled out of his composure; his eyes flashed to those of Barlow.

But the Captain, knowing all this beforehand, had an advantage, and he showed no sign of trepidation.

Then the thin drawn face of the Resident was flattened out by control, and he commanded the decoit to talk on.

"I tried to save the two sepoys, and one was a sergeant, but I was stricken down with a wound and it was in the way of treachery."

Ajeet laid a hand upon his wounded shoulder, saying, "When the two sepoys rode suddenly out of the night into our camp, where there in the moonlight lay the bodies of the merchant and his men, the Bagrees were afraid lest the two should make report. They rushed upon the two riders, and it was then that I was wounded. I would have been killed but for this protection," and Ajeet rubbed affectionately the beautiful strong shirt-of-mail that enwrapped his torso.

"And observe, Sahib, the wound is from behind, which is a wound of treachery. As I rushed to the two and cried to them to be gone, a ball from a short gun in the hands of some Bagree smote me upon the shoulder, and this,—" he again touched the shirt-of-mail,—"and my shoulder-blade turned it from my heart. Even then Hunsa thought I was dead. And he was in league with the Dewan to obtain for Nana Sahib a girl of my household, who is called the Gulab because she is as beautiful as the moon."

At this statement Barlow knew why the man he had beaten with his pistol had tried to seize the Gulab. It was startling. The leg that had rested across a knee clamped noisily to the floor, and a smothered "Damn!" escaped from his lips. What a devilish complicated thing it was.

Ajeet resumed: "Hunsa rushed to where the Gulab was in hiding and helped the men who had been sent by Nana Sahib to steal her. Then he came back to our camp saying that many men had beaten him, and that he had been forced to flee."

At this vagary Barlow chuckled inwardly.

"What of the two soldiers?" Hodson asked; "why were they here in this land and at the camp of the Bagrees?"

"I know not, Sahib."

"Were the bodies robbed by your men—they would be—did they find papers that would indicate the two were messengers?" and the Resident's bloodless fingers that clasped a pen were trembling with the suppression of the awful interest he strove to hide, for he knew, as well as Barlow, what their mission was.

"Yes, Sahib, they were stripped and the bodies thrown in the pit with the others. Eight rupees were taken, but as to papers I know nothing."

"Where is the woman you call the Gulab?"

"She will be in the hands of Nana Sahib," Ajeet answered; "and because of that I have come to confess so your Honour will save my life from him for he will make accusation that I was Chief of those who killed the soldiers of the British; and that the Sahib will cause to have returned to me the Gulab."

The Resident took from a drawer a form, and his pen scratched irritably at blanks here and there. He tossed it over to Barlow saying, "I'm going to give this decoit this provisional pardon; perhaps it will nail him. What he has confessed is of value. You translate this to him while I think; I can't make mistakes—I must not."

Captain Barlow read to Ajeet the pardon, which was the form adopted by the British government to be issued to certain thugs and decoits who became spies, called Approvers, for the British.

"You, Ajeet Singh, are promised exemption from the punishment of death and transportation beyond seas for all past offences, and such reasonable indulgence as your services may seem to merit, and may be compatible with your safe custody on condition:—1st, that you make full confession of all the decoities in which you have been engaged; 2nd, that you mention truly the names of all your associates in these crimes, and assist to the utmost of your power in their arrest and conviction. If you act contrary to these conditions—conceal any of the circumstances of the decoities in which you have been engaged—screen any of your friends—attempt to escape—or accuse any innocent person—you shall be considered to have forfeited thereby all claims to such exemption and indulgence."

When the Captain had finished interpreting this the Resident passed it to the decoit, saying: "This will protect you from the British. You are now bound to the British; and I want you to bring me any papers that may have been found upon the two soldiers. Bring here this woman, the Gulab, if you can find her. Go now."

When Ajeet, with a deep salaam, had gone from the room Hodson threw himself back in his chair wearily and sighed. Then he said: "A woman! the jamadar was lying—all that stuff about Nana Sahib. There's been some deviltry; they've used this woman to trap the messengers; that's India. It's the papers they were after; they must have known they were coming; and they've hidden the woman. We've got to lay hands upon her, Captain—she's the key-note."



CHAPTER XV

Barlow had waited until the decoit would have gone before showing the papers that were in his pocket because it was an advantage that the enemy should think them lost. He was checked now as he put a hand in his pocket to produce them by the entrance of Elizabeth, and he fancied there was a sneer on her thin lips.

"Father," she said, as she leaned against the desk, one hand on its teak-wood top, "I've been listening to the handsome leader of thieves; I couldn't help hearing him. I fancy that Captain Barlow could tell you just where this woman, the Gulab, who is as beautiful as the moon, is. I'm sure he could bring her here—if he would."

The Captain's fingers unclasped from the papers in his pocket, and now were beating a tattoo on his knee.

"Elizabeth!" the father gasped, "do you know what you are saying?" His cold grey eyes were wide with astonishment. "Did you hear all of Ajeet Singh's story?"

"Yes, all of it."

"It's your friend, Nana Sahib, whom you treat as if he were an Englishman and to be trusted, that knows where this woman is, Elizabeth."

A cynical laugh issued from the girl's lips that were so like her father's in their unsympathetic contour: "Yes, one may trust men, but a woman's eyes are given her to prevent disaster from this trust which is so natural to the deceivable sex."

"Elizabeth! you do not know what you are saying—what the inference would be."

"Ask Captain Barlow if he doesn't know all about the Gulab's movements."

The Resident pushed irritably some papers on his desk, and turning in his chair, asked, "Can you explain this, Captain—what it is all about?"

There were ripples of low temperature chilling the base of Barlow's skull. "I can't explain it—it's beyond me," he answered doggedly.

The girl turned upon him with ferocity. "Don't lie, Captain Barlow; a British officer does not lie to his superior."

"Hush, Beth," the father pleaded.

"Don't you know, Captain Barlow," the girl demanded, "that this woman, the Gulab, is one who uses her beauty to betray men, even Sahibs?"

"No, I don't know that, Miss Hodson. I saw her dance at Nana Sahib's and I've heard Ajeet's statement. I don't know anything evil of the girl, and I don't believe it."

"A man's sense of honour where a woman is concerned—lie to protect her. I have no illusions about the Sahibs in India," she continued, in a tone that was devilish in its cynicism, "but I did think that a British officer would put his duty to his King above the shielding of a nautch girl."

"Elizabeth!" Hodson rose and put a hand upon the girl's arm; "do you realise that you are doing a dreadful thing—that you are impeaching Captain Barlow's honour as a soldier?"

Barlow's face was white, and Hodson was trembling, but the girl stood, a merciless cold triumph in her face: "I do realise that, father. For the girl I care nothing, nor for Captain Barlow's intrigue with such, but I am the daughter of the man who represents the British Raj here."

Barlow, knowing the full deviltry of this high protestation, knowing that Elizabeth, imperious, dominating, cold-blooded, was knifing a supposed rival—a rival not in love, for he fancied Elizabeth was incapable of love—felt a surge of indignation.

"For God's sake, Elizabeth, what impossible thing has led you to believe that Captain Barlow has anything to do with this girl?" the father asked.

"I'll tell you; the matter is too grave for me to remain silent. This morning I rode early—earlier than usual, for I wanted to pick up the Captain before he had started. As I turned my mount in to his compound I saw, coming from the back of the bungalow, this native woman, and she was being taken away by his chowkidar. She had just come out some back door of the bungalow, for from the drive I could see the open space that lay between the bungalow and the servants' quarters."

Hodson dropped a hand to the teak-wood desk; it looked inadequate, thin, bloodless; blue veins mapped its white back. "You are mistaken, Elizabeth, I'm sure. Some other girl—"

"No, father, I was not mistaken. There are not many native girls like the Gulab, I'll admit. As she turned a clump of crotons she saw me sitting my horse and drew a gauze scarf across her face to hide it. I waited, and asked the chowkidar if it were his daughter, and the old fool said it was the wife of his son; and the girl that he claimed was his son's wife had the iron bracelet of a Hindu widow on her arm. And the Gulab wears one—I saw it the night she danced."

A ghastly hush fell upon the three. Barlow was moaning inwardly, "Poor Bootea!"; Hodson, fingers pressed to both temples, was trying to think this was all the mistaken outburst of an angry woman. The strong-faced, honest, fearless soldier sitting in the chair could not be a traitor—could not be.

Suddenly something went awry in the inflamed chambers of Elizabeth's mind—as if an electric current had been abruptly shut off. She hesitated; she had meant to say more; but there was a staggering vacuity.

With an effort she grasped a wavering thing of tangibility, and said: "I'm going now, father—to give the keys to the butler for breakfast. You can question Captain Barlow."

Elizabeth turned and left the room; her feet were like dependents, servants that she had to direct to carry her on her way. She did not call to the butler, but went to her room, closed the door, flung herself on the bed, face downward, and sobbed; tears that scalded splashed her cheeks, and she beat passionately with clenched fist at the pillow, beating, as she knew, at her heart. It was incredible, this thing, her feelings.

"I don't care—I don't care—I never did!" she gasped.

But she did, and only now knew it.

"I was right—I'm glad—I'd say it again!"

But she would not, and she knew it. She knew that Barlow could not be a traitor; she knew it; it was just a battered new love asserting itself.

And below in the room the two men for a little sat not speaking of the ghoulish thing. Barlow had drawn the papers from his pocket; he passed them silently across the table.

Hodson, almost mechanically, had stretched a hand for them, and when they were opened, and he saw the seal, and realised what they were, some curious guttural sound issued from his lips as if he had waked in affright from a nightmare. He pulled a drawer of the desk open, took out a cheroot—and lighted it. Then he commenced to speak, slowly, droppingly, as one speaks who has suddenly been detected in a crime. He put a flat hand on the papers, holding them to the desk. And it was Elizabeth he spoke of at first, as if the thing under his palm, that meant danger to an empire, was subservient.

"Barlow, my boy," he said, "I'm old, I'm tired."

The Captain, looking into the drawn face, had a curious feeling that Hodson was at least a hundred. There was a floaty wonderment in his mind why the fifty-five-years'-service retirement rule had not been enforced in the Colonel's case. Then he heard the other's words.

"I've had but two gods, Barlow, the British Raj and Elizabeth; that's since her mother died. In a little, a few years more, I will retire with just enough to live on plus my pension—perhaps in France, where it's cheap. And then I'll still have two gods, Elizabeth and the one God. And, Captain, somehow I had hoped that you and Elizabeth would hit it off, but I'm afraid she's made a mistake."

Barlow had been following this with half his receptivity, for, though he fought against it, the memory of Bootea—gentle, trusting, radiating love, warmth—cried out against the bitter unfemininity of the girl who had stabbed his honour and his cleanness. The black figure of Kali still rested on the table, and somehow the evil lines in the face of the goddess suggested the vindictiveness that had played about the thin lips of his accuser.

And the very plea the father was making was reacting. It was this, that he, Barlow, was rich, that a chance death or two would make him Lord Barradean, was the attraction, not love. A girl couldn't be in love with a man and strive to break him.

Hodson had taken up the papers, and was again scanning them mistily.

"They were on the murdered messenger—he was killed, wasn't he, Barlow?"

"Yes."

"And has any native seen these papers, Captain?"

"No, I cut them from the soles of the sandals the messenger wore, myself, Sir."

"That is all then, Captain; we have them back—I may say, thank God!" He stood up and holding out his hand added, "Thank you, Captain. I don't want to know anything about the matter—I'm too much machine now to measure rainbows—fancy I should wear a strip of red-tape as a tie."

"If you will listen, Sir—there is another that I want to put right. Your daughter did see the Gulab, but because she had brought me the sandals. And you can take an officer's word for it that the Gulab is not what Elizabeth believes."

"Captain, I have lived a long time in India, too long to be led away by quick impressions, as unfortunately Elizabeth was. I've outlived my prejudices. When the mhowa tree blooms I can take glorious pleasure from its gorgeous fragrant flowers and not quarrel with its leafless limbs. When the pipal and the neem glisten with star flowers and sweeten the foetid night-air, it matters nothing to me that the natives believe evil gods home in the branches. I know that even a cobra tries to get out of my way if I'll let him, and I know that the natives have beauty in their natures—one gets to almost love them as children. So, my dear Captain, when you tell me that the Gulab rendered you and me and the British Raj this tremendous service, and add, quite unnecessarily, that she's a good girl, I believe it all; we need never bring it up again. Elizabeth has just made a mistake. And, Barlow, men are always forgiving the mistakes of women where their feelings are concerned—they must—that is one of the proofs of their strength. But these"—and he patted the papers lovingly—"well, they're rather like a reprieve brought at the eleventh hour to a man who is to be executed. We're put in a difficult position, though. To pass over in silence the killing of two soldiers would end only in the House of Commons; somebody would rise in his place and want to know why it had been hushed up. But to take action, to create a stir, would give rise to a suspicion of the existence of this."