are you?' said one of the men.

'I am the Colonel Sahib's son, and my order is that you go at once.
You black men are frightening the Miss Sahib.

One of you must run into cantonments and take the news that the Miss
Sahib has hurt herself, and that the Colonel's son is here with her.'

'Put our feet into the trap?' was the laughing reply.

'Hear this boy's speech!'

'Say that I sent you--I, the Colonel's son. They will give you
money.'

'What is the use of this talk? Take up the child and the girl, and we
can at least ask for the ransom. Ours are the villages on the
heights,' said a voice in the background.

These _were_ the Bad Men--worse than Goblins--and it needed all Wee
Willie Winkie's training to prevent him from bursting into tears. But
he felt that to cry before a native, excepting only his mother's
_ayah_, would be an infamy greater than any mutiny. Moreover, he, as
future Colonel of the 195th, had that grim regiment at his back.

'Are you going to carry us away?' said Wee Willie Winkie, very
blanched and uncomfortable.

'Yes, my little _Sahib Bahadur_,' said the tallest of the men, 'and
eat you afterwards.'

'That is child's talk,' said Wee Willie Winkie. 'Men do not eat men.'

A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he went on firmly--'And if
you do carry us away, I tell you that all my regiment will come up in
a day and kill you all without leaving one. Who will take my message
to the Colonel Sahib?'

Speech in any vernacular--and Wee Willie Winkie had a colloquial
acquaintance with three--was easy to the boy who could not yet manage
his 'r's' and 'th's' aright.

Another man joined the conference, crying: 'O foolish men! What this
babe says is true. He is the heart's heart of those white troops. For
the sake of peace let them go both, for if he be taken, the regiment
will break loose and gut the valley. _Our_ villages are in the
valley, and we shall not escape. That regiment are devils. They broke
Khoda Yar's breastbone with kicks when he tried to take the rifles;
and if we touch this child they will fire and rape and plunder for a
month, till nothing remains. Better to send a man back to take the
message and get a reward. I say that this child is their God, and
that they will spare none of us, nor our women, if we harm him.'

It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom of the Colonel, who made the
diversion, and an angry and heated discussion followed. Wee Willie
Winkie, standing over Miss Al