and for the sake of
the cause I have at heart. We are doing no good here. I can do most by
going to the Resident, or even to somebody higher up than he, and laying
my case before him personally. Send for Joanna, and tell her to go and
bring Mahommed Gunga's man."

It was then that they missed Joanna and began to search for her. But no
Joanna came. It was then that Rosemary McClean rehearsed with her father
her former conversation with Mahommed Gunga and part, at least, of her
recent one with Ali Partab, and the missionary started off himself to
find the horseman whom Mahommed Gunga had so thoughtfully left behind.

But he very naturally found no Ali Partab. What he did discover was that
he was followed--that a guard, unarmed but obvious, was placed around
the mission house--that his servants deserted one by one--that no more
children came to the mission school.

He decided to take chances and ride off with his daughter in the night.
But the ponies went mysteriously lame, and nobody would lend or sell him
horses on any terms at all. He did his best to get a letter through to
anywhere where there were British, but nobody would take it. And then
Jaimihr came, swaggering with his escort, to offer him and his daughter
the hospitality of his palace.

He declined that offer a little testily, for the insolence behind the
offer was less than half concealed. Jaimihr sneered as he rode away.

"Perhaps a month or two of undisturbed enjoyment will induce the
padre-sahib to change his mind about my invitation!" he said nastily.
And he made no secret then, as he ordered them about before he went,
that the men who lounged and watched at every vantage-point were his.

CHAPTER X

They looked into my eyes and laughed,--
But, what when I was gone?
Have strong men made me one of them?
Or do I ride alone?

ON the morning after Mahommed Gunga's daring experiment with
Cunningham's nervous system he was anxious to say the least of it; and
that is only another way of saying that he was irritable. He watched the
Englishman at breakfast, on the dak-bungalow veranda, with a sideways
restless glance that gave the lie a dozen times over to his assumed air
of irascible authority.

"We will see now what we will see," he muttered to himself. "These who
know such a lot imagine that the test is made. They forget that there
be many brave men of whom but a few are fit to lead. Now--now--we will
see!" And