sanguinary and lawless cut-throats on the face of the earth. In the athletic exercises so dear to the Beloochees he excelled them all. Among a people who may be said to be almost born on horseback, there was no rider like the commandant of the Sind Horse.

His men were taken from all the most warlike races of Northwestern India. The Beloochee, the Pathan, the Mooltanee, and the semi-savage tribesmen of the hills, had alike to learn obedience when they came under his command, and his efforts to make them soldiers in the highest sense of the word never relaxed.

In the year 1854 the country was full of complaints of horse-stealing on a scale that had not been heard of for many years. No steed of value was safe, and the thief or thieves must have been tolerably good judges of horse-flesh, as none but the finest were taken, and these of course belonged principally to the wealthiest inhabitants. One strange thing was that the horses were stolen in such an extraordinary manner as to leave no foot-marks behind them. Not one of the animals could be traced as ever having been offered for sale in the country. Stables are rare in Upper Sind, and it is customary to secure a horse by picketing him with head and heel ropes, the syce, or groom, usually sleeping in the open air with the animal. The curious part of the matter was that each and every syce who had had a horse stolen from under his care told exactly the same story—that it had been taken away by Sheitan himself in person, after they, the syces, had been put to sleep by his diabolical arts.

To be sure, they described his personal appearance in many ways, according to the impression severally produced upon their excited imaginations, but in the main facts they were all agreed. They had been sleeping or watching, as the case might be, beside their horses, when a hideous figure suddenly and silently appeared to them, waved his right hand, muffled in a white cloth, in their faces; they lost their senses, and when they recovered, the horses were gone. In no case had the demon injured the men. Where more than one horse was picketed the fiend never appeared, which was considered to be the reason that the splendid chargers of the Sind Horse were not touched.

Superstition is very prevalent in Sind, as indeed it is throughout the East, and had any native skeptic ventured to hint that alert sentries, a vigilant patrol, and a stable guard with loaded carbines had anything to do with this immunity, he would, indeed, have been looked upon as a scoffer.

As to the British officers, of course, although heroes, they were infidels, and, however they might laugh at the idea of Satan roaming about the earth to deprive the sons of men of their horses, they could have no power to check the public opinion of the bazars.

There was, however, an old Ressaldar, or native captain of the Sind Horse, who was very much inclined to take the Feringhee view of the matter. Ressaldar Nubbee Bux was a veteran who had served in his corps almost from its foundation, and in his younger days had fought against the flag under which he had since served so long. He, with many other brave Beloochees, had been opposed to Sir Charles Napier at Meeanee, and had a vivid recollection of the time when the inhabitants of Sind actually believed that distinguished though eccentric General to be the fiend in human form. Since then Nubbee Bux had acquired rank, honor, and a good deal of worldly wisdom. He was naturally a shrewd, hard-headed man, and contact with intelligent Europeans had, if not entirely eradicated native superstitions from his mind, at least rendered him very dubious of any stories having for their basis supernatural agency. He had heard of genii, jinns, divs, afrites, and other evil spirits, but he had never seen one; he had never known them in his own time to interfere in worldly matters, nor had he heard, even in ancient story, that they were in the habit of laying felonious hands on live stock, or earthly property of any description. That the Prince of Darkness himself should be so hard up for horses as to go about stealing them appeared to him incomprehensible. It struck him as a mystery he should like to unravel; and as he feared nothing nor nobody on the face of the earth, nor below it, save his commanding officer, he determined to try. Ascertaining the whereabouts of the last wonderful robbery, he obtained a fortnight's leave of absence, and repaired to the village, well armed, and mounted on a magnificent thorough-bred Arab horse. He did not enter it nor put up at the serai, but had a tent some little distance outside. There he was soon visited by the head men of the place, who lost no time in paying their respects, for a native officer of the Sind Horse is a great man in the country around Jacobabad.

After salutations the local magnates were full of the unaccountable robberies, and earnest in their warnings to the Ressaldar to take care of his noble steed. Had he not better come into the village? The Kotwal had a stable with lock and key at his service, and would put a watchman over the door all night. Nubbee Bux civilly but firmly declined these favors. He said that if it was fated Sheitan should have his horse, neither lock, key, nor watchman could prevent it; he should stay where he was, and his syce should sleep with the animal as usual. His visitors departed, and the native officer, after a stroll about, took his supper outside the tent, smoked his hookah, and when it was dark dismissed his servants, and went to bed—or seemed to do so.

When the distant hum of the village was entirely hushed, and no sound but the usual howling of the jackals met his ear, he rose, pulled aside the canvas opening of the tent, and made a curious sort of barely audible noise like the "chup, chup" of the stag-beetle. His syce, who was lying beside the horse, swathed in a huge blanket, which covered his head as well as his feet, rose, and with noiseless footfall entered his master's tent. In three minutes he re-appeared, or seemed to do so, and again wrapping himself in his great blanket, lay down to sleep by the horse's side, or seemed to do so.

In about two hours from that time a hideous form appeared to rise from the earth. Its figure was human, but the dark brown flesh glistened as no human flesh ever glistened naturally, while the head was indeed fearsome to behold. It was surmounted by an enormous pair of horns, had two glaring eyes, and a mouth full of frightful teeth, from which protruded a tongue forked like a barbed arrow.

The weird figure stooped and advanced its right hand, wrapped in a white cloth, toward the head of the prostrate syce. Like a flash of lightning that prostrate form sprang up. Ressaldar Nubbee Bux (for he was his own syce on this occasion) dealt his assailant such a slash with his tulwar as would have cleft the head of any mortal man in halves, and which, as it was, stretched the horse-thief senseless on the ground.

As Nubbee Bux, bare blade in hand, bent over his foe, a strange sight met his view.

The blow had split a head-covering composed of buffalo-skin with the hair on, stretched over an iron mask, something like a diver's helmet, with eyes of transparent horn ingeniously illuminated by means of minute lamps concealed in the balls, the real eyes of the wearer having sight beneath. The false teeth and forked tongue were knocked out, and lay on the ground with the horns.

The Ressaldar summoned his syce, who had remained in the tent, and a light being brought, found that the prisoner who had fallen into his hands was a fine athletic young Beloochee, about twenty-two years of age. He was quickly bound, and by direction of his captor carried into the tent.

He was only stunned, and soon recovered to find himself helpless, and the first words that fell upon his ear were spoken in his own language, by a stern-looking man of some five-and-forty years, whose right hand coquetted with the hilt of a tulwar, while his left hand ominously handled a