, but now
that the guns are here to help us, we could either hold out here until
relieved or else fight our way into Jundhra, where I have no doubt we
are very badly needed. But"--he spoke more slowly and distinctly now,
with a distinct pause between each word--"there is an officer's lady
alone, and practically unprotected at Hanadra. Our duty is clear. You
are tired--I know it. You have had no supper, and will get none. It
means forced marching for the rest of this night and a good part of
tomorrow and more fighting, possibly on an empty stomach; it means the
dust and the heat and the discomfort of the trunk road for all of us and
danger of the worst kind instead of safety--for we shall have farther to
go to reach Jundhra. But I would do the same, and you men all know it,
for any soldier's wife in my command, or any English woman in India. We
will march now on Hanadra. No! No demonstrations, please!"

His uplifted left hand was just in time to check a roar of answering
approval.

"Didn't I tell you so?" exclaimed a gunner to the man beside him in an
undertone. "Him leave a white woman to face this sort o' music? He'd
fight all India first!"

Ten minutes later two companies of men marched out behind the guns,
followed by a cart that bore their wounded. As they reached the trunk
road they were saluted by a reverberating blast when the magazine that
they had fought to hold blew skyward. They turned to cheer the explosion
and then settled down to march in deadly earnest and, if need be, to
fight a rear-guard action all the way.

And in the opposite direction one solitary gunner rode,
hell-bent-for-leather, with a note addressed to "O. C.--Jundhra." It was
short and to the point. It ran:

Have blown up magazine; Mrs. Bellairs at Hanadra;
have gone to rescue her.
(Signed) A. FORRESTER-CARTER (Col.)
per J. O'Rourke

V.

The red glow of barracks burning--an ayah from whom a dagger has
been taken locked in another room--the knowledge that there are fifty
thousand Aryan brothers, itching to rebel, within a stone's throw--and
two lone protectors of an alien race intent on torturing a High Priest,
each and every one of these is a disturbing feature. No woman, and least
of all a young woman such as Ruth Bellairs, can be blamed for being
nervous under the stress of such conditions or for displaying a certain
amount of feminine unreasonableness.

She stood sh