head was one whose dress
showed him to be a person of importance; and whom Harry at once
recognized as Balloba, having often noticed him during the
negotiations at Poona. As his eye fell upon Harry he checked his
horse for a moment, and beckoned to him to come to him.

"Come here, weynsh," he said, using the term generally applied to
the commercial caste.

[Illustration: Harry went up to him, and salaamed.]

Harry went up to him, and salaamed.

"How comes it," the minister asked, "that so fine a young fellow as
you are is content to be peddling goods through the country, when
so well fitted by nature for better things? You should be a
soldier, and a good one. For so young a man, I have never seen a
greater promise of strength.

"It seems to me that your face is not unknown to me. Where do you
come from?"

"From Jooneer, your excellency, where my people are cultivators
but, having no liking for that life, I learned the trade of a
shopkeeper, and obtained permission to travel to your camp, and to
try my fortune in disposing of some of my master's goods."

As Jooneer was but some sixty miles from Toka, the explanation was
natural enough and, as the former town lay near to the main road
from Scindia's dominions in Candeish, it afforded an explanation of
Balloba's partial recognition of his face.

"And as a merchant, you can read and write, I suppose?" the latter
went on.

"Yes, your highness, sufficiently well for my business."

"Well, think it over. You can scarcely find your present life more
suitable to your taste than that of a cultivator, and the army is
the proper place for a young fellow with spirit, and with strength
and muscles such as you have. If you like to enlist in my own
bodyguard, and your conduct be good, I will see that you have such
promotion as you deserve."

"Your excellency is kind, indeed," Harry said, humbly. "Before I
accept your kind offer, will you permit me to return to Jooneer to
account for my sales to my employer, and to obtain permission of my
father to accept your offer; which would indeed be greatly more to
my taste than the selling of goods."

"It is well," Balloba said, and then broke off:

"Ah! I know now why I remember your face. 'Tis the lightness of
your eyes, which are of a colour rarely seen; but somehow or other,
it appears to me that it was not at Jooneer, but at Poona, that I
noticed your face."

"I was at Poona, with my master, when your highness was there,"