Captain Barlow—I'll tool you home. The Captain might like a peg."

The bay Arabs swirled the brake along the smooth roadway that lay like a wide band of coral between giant green walls of gold-mohr and tamarind; and sometimes a pipal, its white bole and branches gleaming like the bones of a skeleton through leaves of the deepest emerald, and its roots daubed with the red paint of devotion to the tree god. Here and there a neem, its delicate branches dusted with tiny white star blossoms, cast a sensuous elusive perfume to the vagrant breeze. Once a gigantic jamon stretched its gnarled arms across the roadway as if a devilfish held poised his tentacles to snatch from the brake its occupants.

When they had swung in to the Sirdar's bungalow and clambered down from the brake, Elizabeth said: "If you don't mind, General Baptiste, I'll just drift around amongst these beautiful roses while you men have your pegs. No, I don't care for tea," she said, in answer to his suggestion. There was a mirthless smile on her lips as she added: "I'm like Captain Barlow, I like the rose."

The three men sat on the verandah while a servant brought brandy-and-soda, and Nana Sahib, with a restless perversity akin to the torturing proclivity of a Hindu was quizzing the Frenchman about his recruits.

"You'll find them no good," he assured Baptiste—"rebellious cusses, worthless thieves. My Moslem friend, the King of Oudh, tried them out. He got up a regiment of them—Budhuks, Bagrees—all sorts; it was named the Wolf Regiment—that was the only clever thing about it, the name. They stripped the uniforms from the backs of the officers sent to drill them and kicked them out of camp; said the officers put on swank; wouldn't clean their own horses and weapons, same as the other men."

Then he switched the torture—made it more acute; wanted to know what
Sirdar Baptiste had got them for.

The Frenchman fumed inwardly. Nana Sahib was at the bottom of the whole murderous scheme, and here, like holding a match over a keg of powder, he must talk about it in front of the Englishman.

When the brandy was brought Nana Sahib put hand over the top of his glass.

"Not drinking, Prince?" Barlow asked.

"No," Nana Sahib answered, "a Brahmin must diet; holiness is fostered by a shrivelled skin."

"But pardon me, Prince," Barlow said hesitatingly, "didn't going across the black-water to England break your caste anyway—so why cut out the peg?"

"Yes, Captain Sahib,"—the Prince's voice rasped with a peculiar harsh gravity as though it were drawn over the jagged edge of intense feeling,—"my caste was broken, and to get it back I drank the dregs; a cup of liquid from the cow, and not milk either!"

Baptiste coughed uneasily for he saw in the eyes of Nana Sahib smouldering passion.

And Barlow's face was suffused with a sudden flush of embarrassment.

Perhaps it had been the sight of the blood sacrifice that had started Nana Sahib on a line of bitter thought; had stirred the smothering hate that was in his soul until frothing bubbles of it mounted to his lips.

"I was born in the shadow of Parvati," Nana Sahib said, "and when I came back from England I found that still I was a Brahmin; that the songs of the Bhagavad Gita and the philosophy of the Puranas was more to me than what I had been taught at Oxford. So I took back the caste, and under my shirt is the junwa (sacred thread)."

A quick smile lighted his face, and he laid a hand on Barlow's arm, saying in a new voice, a voice that was as if some one spoke through his lips in ventriloquism: "And all this, Captain, is a good thing for my friends the English. The Brahmins, as you know, sway the Mahrattas, and if I am of them they will listen to me. The English boast—and they have reason to—that they have made a friend of Nana Sahib. Here, Baptiste, pour me a glass of plain soda, and we'll drink a toast to Nana Sahib and the English."

"By Jove! splendid!" and Captain Barlow held out a hand.

But Baptiste, saying that he would find Miss Hodson, went out into the sunshine cursing.

"Now we will go back," Nana Sahib was saying as the French General brought Elizabeth from among the oleanders and crotons.

CHAPTER IV

The day after the Bagrees had taken the oath of allegiance to Sindhia the jamadars were summoned to the Dewan's office to receive their instructions for the carrying out of the mission.

In writing the Raja of Karowlee for the decoits, Dewan Sewlal had not stated that the mission was for the purpose of bringing home in a bag the head of the Pindar Chief. As the wily Hindu had said to Sirdar Baptiste: "We will get them here before speaking of this dangerous errand. Once here, and Karowlee's hopes raised over getting territory, if they then go back without accomplishing the task, that rapacious old man will cast them into prison."

So when the Bagree leaders, closeted with Baptiste and the Dewan in a room of the latter's bungalow, learned what was expected of them they, to put it mildly, received a shock. They had thought that it was to be a decoity of treasure, perhaps of British treasure, and in their proficient hands such an affair did not run into much danger generally.

The jamadars drew to one side and discussed the matter; then Ajeet said: "Dewan Sahib, what is asked of us should have been in the written message to our Raja. We be decoits, that is true, it is our profession, but the mission that is spoken of is not thus. Hunsa has ridden with Amir Khan upon a foray into Hyderabad, and he knows that the Chief is always well guarded, and that to try for his head in the midst of his troops would be like the folly of children."

The Dewan's fat neck swelled with indignation; his big ox-like eyes bulged from their holding in anger:

"Phut-t-t!" he spat in derision. "Bagrees!" he sneered; "descendants of Rajputs—bah! Have you brought women with you that will lead this force? And danger!" he snarled—he turned on Sookdee: "You are Sookdee, son of Bhart, so it was signed."

"Yes, Dewan, it is true."

"You are the son of your mother, not Bhart," the Dewan raved; "he was a brave man, but you speak of danger—bah!"

The Dewan's teeth, stained red at the edges from the chewing of pan, showed in a sneering grin like a hyena's as he added: "Bah! Ye are but thieves who steal from those who are helpless."

Ajeet spoke: "Dewan Sahib, we be men as brave as Bhart—we are of the same caste, but there is a difference between such an one as he took the head of and a Pindari Chief. The Pindaris are the wild dogs of Hind, they are wolves, and is it easy to trap a wolf?"

But the Dewan had worked himself into a frenzy at their questioning of the possibilities; he waved his fat hands in a gesture of dismissal crying: "Go, go!"

As the jamadars stood hesitatingly, Sewlal swung to the Frenchman: "Sirdar Sahib, make the order that I cease payment of the thousand rupees a day to these rebels, cowards. Go!" and he looked at Ajeet; "talk it over amongst yourselves, and send to me one of your wives that will lead a company—lend your women your tulwars."

Ajeet's black eyes flashed anger, and his brows were drawn into a knot just above his thin, hawk-like nose; suppressed passion at the Dewan's deadly insult was in the even, snarling tone of his voice:

"Dewan Sahib, harsh words are profitless—" his eyes, glittering, were fixed on the bulbous orbs of the man of the