if it please
you I will go with your promises to the British."

"It is a command, Sahib--to-morrow. And may the Peace of Allah be upon
thee and thy house always!"

He held out a hand and his large dark eyes hovered lovingly over the
face of the Englishman.

CHAPTER XXVI

Captain Barlow walked along to the tent of Bootea to tell her of the
arrangement that had been made for their leaving the camp so that she
might be ready. He could see in the girl's eyes the reflection of a
dual mental struggle, an ineffable sweetness varied by a changing cloud
of something that was apprehension or doubt.

"The Sahib is a protector to Bootea," she said. "Sometimes I wondered
if such men lived; yet I suppose a woman always has in her mind a vague
conception that such an one might be. But always that, that is like a
dream, is broken--one wakes."

Prosaically taking the matter in hand Barlow said, "You would wish to
go back to your people at Chunda--is it not so?"

The girl's eyes flashed to his face, and her brows wrinkled as if from
pain. "Those who have fled will be on their way to Chunda, and they
will tell of the slaying of Amir Khan. The Dewan will be pleased, and
they will be given honour and rich reward; they will be allowed to
return to Karowlee."

"Yes," Barlow interposed; "that Hunsa goes not back will simply be
taken as an affair of war, that he was captured and killed; there will
be nobody to relate that you revealed the plot. When you arrive there
you, also, will be showered with favours, and Ajeet Singh will owe his
life to you; they will set him at liberty."

"And as to Nana Sahib?" Bootea asked, and there was pathetic dread in
her eyes.

"What is it--you fear him?"

"Yes, Sahib, he will claim Bootea; a Mahratta never keeps faith. There
will be a fresh covenant, because he is like a beast of the jungle."

Barlow paced back and forth the small confine of the tent, muttering.
"It's hell!" He pictured the Gulab in the harem of Nana Sahib--in a
gaudy prison chained to a serpent. To interfere on her behalf would be
to sacrifice what came first, his duty as an officer of state, to what
would be called, undoubtedly, an infatuation. Elizabeth would take it
that way; even his superiors would call it at least inexpedient, bad
form. For a British officer to be interested or mixed up with a native
woman, no matter how noble the impulse, would be a shatterment of both
official and personal caste.

"I