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 Karowl