there, there was a sinuous grace, panther-like, as if he strode on soft pads. At rest his tall figure had the set-up of a soldier.

As the three in the brake studied the handsome Ajeet, a girl stepped forward and stood contemplating them.

"By Jove!" the exclamation had been Captain Barlow's; and Elizabeth, with the devilish premonition of an acute woman knew that it was a masculine's involuntary tribute to feminine attractivity.

She had turned to look at the Captain.

Nana Sahib, little less vibrant than a woman in his sensitive organisation, showed his even, white teeth: "Don't blame you, old chap," he said; "she's all that. I fancy that's the girl they call Gulab Begum. Am I right, Sirdar?"

"Yes, Prince," Jean Baptiste answered. "The girl is a relative of the handsome Ajeet."

"She's simply stunning!" Captain Barlow said, as it were, meditatively.

But Nana Sahib, knowing perfectly well what this observation would do to the austere, exact, dominating daughter of a precise man, the Resident, muttered to himself: "Colossal ass! an impressionable cuss should have a purdah hung over his soul—or be gagged."

"One of their nautch girls, I suppose;" Elizabeth thus eased some of the irritation over Barlow's admiration in a well-bred sneer.

"Yes," Baptiste declared; "it is said she dances wonderfully."

"You name her the Gulab Begum, General,—that is a Moslem title and, from the turbans and caste-marks on the men, they seem to be Hindus; I suppose Gulab Begum is her stage name, is it?"

Elizabeth was exhibiting unusual interest in a native—that is for Elizabeth, and Nana Sahib chuckled softly as he answered: "Names mean little in India; I know high-caste Brahmins who have given their children low-caste names to make them less an object of temptation to the gods of destruction. Also, the Gulab may have been stolen from the harem of some Nawab by this bandit."

The Gulab suggested more a Rajput princess than a dancing girl. No ring pierced the thin nostrils of her Grecian nose; neither from her ears hung circles of gold or brass, or silver; and the slim ankles that peeped from a rich skirt were guiltless of anklets. On the wrist of one arm was a curious gold bangle that must have held a large ruby, for at times the sun flicked from the moving wrist splashes of red wine. Indeed the whole atmosphere of the girl was simplicity and beauty.

"No wonder they call her the Rose Queen," Barlow was communing with himself. For the oval face with its olive skin, as fair as a Kashmiri girl's, was certainly beautiful. The black hair was smoothed back from a wide low forehead, after the habit of the Mahratti women; the prim simplicity of this seeming to add to the girlish effect. A small white-and-gold turban, even with its jauntiness, seemed just the very thing to check the austere simplicity. The girl's eyes, like Ajeet's, were the eyes of some one unafraid, of one born to a caste that felt equality. When they turned to those who sat in the brake they were calmly meditative; they were the eyes of a child, modest; but with the unabashed confidence of youth.

Elizabeth, perhaps unreasonably, for the three of them sat so close together in the brake, fancied that the Gulab's gaze constantly picked out the handsome Captain Barlow.

An imp touched Nana Sahib, and he said: "I'd swear there was Rajput blood in that girl. If I knew of some princess having been stolen I'd say she stood yonder. The eyes are simply ripping; baby eyes, that, when roused, assist in driving a knife under a man's fifth rib. I've seen a sambhur doe with just such eyes cut into ribbons a Rampore hound with her sharp hoofs."

"Well, Prince," Elizabeth said, "I suppose you know the women of this land better than either Captain Barlow or myself, and you're probably right, for I see in a belt at her waist the jewelled hilt of a dagger."

Nana Sahib laughed: "My dear Miss Hodson, I never play with edged tools, and Captain—"

But Nana Sahib's raillery was cut short by a small turmoil as the bleating goat of sacrifice was dragged forward to a stone daubed with vermillion upon which rested a small black alabaster image of Kali; while a guru, with sharpened knife, hung near like a falcon over a quivering bird. Three times the goat's head was thrust downward in obeisance to the black goddess; there was a flash of steel in the sunlight, and hot blood gushed forth, to dye with its crimson flood the base of the idol.

A Bagree darted forward and with a stroke of his tulwar clipped the neck from a pitcher and held it beneath the gurgling flood till it was filled.

From where Elizabeth sat she looked across the shoulder of Nana Sahib as they watched the sacrifice; she saw him quiver and lean forward, his shoulders tip as though he would spring from the brake. His face had drawn into hard lines, his lips were set tight in intensity across the teeth so that they showed between in a thin line of white. The blood seemed to have fascinated him; he was oblivious of her presence. She heard him murmur, "Parvati, Parvati! There is blood, blood—wait, thou, Parvati."

The bay Arabs—perhaps their sensitive nostrils drank in the smell of fresh blood—sprang into their collars as if they would bolt in fright. The two syces, squatting on their heels at the horses' heads, had sprung to their feet, and now were caressing the necks of the Arabs as they held them each with a hand by the bit.

There was a curious look in the Prince's eyes as he turned them on
Elizabeth; a mingling of questioning and defiance was in them.

Now the holder of the pitcher stood up and the guru drew upon it four red lines and dropped through its shattered mouth a woman's bracelet of gold lacquer beads. Then the pitcher was placed upon the Kali shrine; raw sugar was inclosed in a cloth and tied to a branch of the pipal.

The voice of the Bagree Chief, somewhat coarse in its fulness, its independence, now was heard saying: "Sirdar Sahib, and Dewan Sahib, we men of the nine castes of the Bagrees now make the sacred oath. Come close that ye may observe."

Jean Baptiste edged his horse to the side of the road, and the Dewan, heaving from the palki, stood upright.

Ajeet dipped a tapering finger in the pitcher of blood, touched the swaying bag of sugar, and laying the hand against his forehead said, in a loud voice:

"If I, Ajeet Singh, break faith with Maharaja Sindhia, may Bhowanee punish me!"

Sookdee and Hunsa each in turn took the same solemn oath of allegiance.

As Hunsa turned from the ordeal and passed the Gulab Begum to where the Bagrees stood in line, Nana Sahib said, "Do you know, General, what that baboon-faced jamadar made oath to?"

"The last one, my Prince?"

"Yes, he of the splendid ugliness. He testified, 'If I fail to thrust a knife between the shoulder-blades of Ajeet Singh may Bhowanee cast me as a sacrifice.'"

"He is jamadar to the other, Prince—but why?"

"He looked upon the Rose Lady as he passed, and as the blooded finger lay upon his forehead he looked upon Ajeet, and in his pig eyes was unholiness."

The cold grey eyes of the Frenchman rested for a second upon the burning black eyes of the speaker, and again he shivered. He knew that the careless words meant that Hunsa was an instrument, if needs be. But the Prince's teeth were gleaming in a smile. And he was saying: "If the play is over, Sirdar, turn your mount over to the syce and pop up here beside