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