“To save Kumari’s life she had been given to the yogi, and he would act not out of affection for the girl’s standing as a princess, but to prevent discovery, bloodshed, and, her life.  It is also known that these ascetics—­infidels, children of the Devil—­by charm, or drugs, or otherwise, can cause something like death for days—­a trance, and the one who goes thus knows not who he was when he comes back,” Kassim argued.

“Well,” Barlow said, “it is a matter unsolvable, and of no importance, for the Gulab, Kumari or otherwise, is a princess, such as men fight and die for.”

There was a little silence, Barlow carrying on in his mind this, the main interest, so far as he was concerned, Bootea; as a woman appealing to the senses or to the subtlest mentality she was the sweetest woman he had ever known.

There was a flicker of grim humour in Kassim’s dark eyes:  “Captain Sahib,” he said, “that evil-faced Bagree has a curious deep cunning, I believe.  I’ll swear now by the hilt of my tulwar that he made up the whole story for the purpose of having audience with me, and in his heart was a favour desired, for, as I was leaving, he asked that I would have his turban given back to him to wear on his going; he pleaded for it.  Of course, Sahib, a turban is an affair of caste, and I suppose he was feeling a disgrace in going forth without it.  It appears that Gulab had taken it as an evidence that he had been killed, but when I sent a man for it she told him that the cloth was possessed of vermin and she had burned it.”

“But still, Chief, though Hunsa has an animal cunning, yet he could not make up such a story—­he has heard it somewhere.”

Barlow felt his heart warm toward the grizzled old warrior as he, dropping the nebulous matter of Kumari, said:  “And to think, Captain Sahib, that but for the Gulab we would have slain you as the murderer of Amir Khan.  As a Patan, even if I had wished it, I could not have fended the tulwars from your body.  And you were a brave man, such as a Pindari loves; rather than announce thyself as an Englay—­the paper gone and thy mission failed—­thou wouldst have stood up to death like a soldier.”

He put his hand caressingly on Barlow’s knee, adding:  “By the Beard of the Prophet thou art a man!  But all this, Sahib, is to this end; we hold the Gulab in reverence, as did Amir Khan, and if it is permitted, I would have her put in thy hands for her going.  Those that were here in the camp with her fled at the first alarm, and my riders discovered to-day, too late, that they hid in an old mud-walled fort about three miles from here whilst my Pindaris scoured the country for them; then when my riders returned they escaped.  So the Gulab is alone.  I will send a guard of fifty horsemen and they will ride with thee till thou turnest their horses’ heads homeward, and for the Gulab there will be a tonga, such as a Nawab might use, drawn by well-fed, and well-shod horses.  That, too, she may keep to the end of her journey and afterwards, returning but the driver.”