you know the
language well enough to pass muster?"

"It's a little late to ask me that!" laughed McClean. "Yes--I'm positive
I do. Good-by."

They shook hands again and the three rode off, cantering presently, to
make the most of the coolness before the sun got up. Cunningham climbed
slowly up the hill and then watched them from the parapet--wondering,
wondering again--whether he was justified. As he put it to himself, it
was "the hell of a position for a man to find himself in!" He caught
himself wondering whether his thoughts would have been the same, and
whether his conscience would have racked him quite as much, had Rosemary
McClean been older, and less lovely, and a little more sour-tongued.

He had to laugh presently at the absurdity of that notion, for Jaimihr
would never have bargained for possession of a sour-faced, elderly
woman. He came to the conclusion that the only thing he could do was
to congratulate the Raj because, at the right minute, the right
good-looking woman had been on the spot! But he did not like the
circumstances any better; and before two hours had passed the loneliness
began to eat into his soul.

Like any other man whose race and breed and training make him
self-dependent, he could be alone for weeks on end and scarcely be aware
that he had nobody to talk to. But his training had never yet included
sending women off on dangerous missions any more than it had taught him
to resist woman's attraction--the charm of a woman's voice, the lure
of a woman's eyes. He did not know what was the matter with him, but
supposed that his liver must be out of order or else that the sun had
touched him.

Taking a chance on the liver diagnosis, he had out the attenuated
garrison, and drilled it, both mounted and dismounted, first on the
hilltop--where they made the walls re-echo to the clang of grounded
butts--and then on the plain below, with the gate wide open in their
rear and one man watching from the height above. When he had tired
them thoroughly, and himself as well, he set two men on the lookout
and retired to sleep; nor did the droning and the wailing music of some
women in the harem trouble him.

They called him regularly when the guard was changed, but he slept the
greater part of that day and stood watch all night. The next day, and
the third day, he drilled the garrison again, growing horribly impatient
and hourly more worried as to what Byng-bahadur might be doing, and
thinking of him.