“Yes, Gulab.  But for you it is not that way.  You have said that I am your protector—­I will be.”

There was a smile on the girl’s lips as she raised her eyes to Barlow’s.  “It is not permitted, Sahib; the gods have the matter in their lap.  For a little—­yes, perhaps.  It is the time of the pilgrimage to the shrine of Omkar at Mandhatta, and Bootea will make the pilgrimage; at the shrine is the priest that told Bootea of her reincarnations, as I related to the Sahib.”

A curious superstitious chill struck with full force upon the heart of Barlow.  Kassim’s story of Kumari revivified itself with startling remembrance.  Was this the priest that, to save Kumari’s sacrifice, had wafted her by occult or drug method from one embodied form into another, from Kumari to Bootea?  It was so confusing, so overpowering in its clutch that he did not speak of it.

The girl was adding:  “It is on the Sahib’s way to Poona; there will be many from Karowlee at Mandhatta and I can return with them.”

This seemed reasonable to Barlow; she would there be in the company of people not at war.  And then, erratically, rebelliously, he felt a heart hunger; but he cursed this feeling as being vicious—­it was.  He smothered it, shoving it back into a niche of his mind, thinking he had locked it up—­had turned a key in the door of the closet to hide the skeleton.

He temporised, saying; “Well, we’ll see, Gulab; perhaps at Mandhatta I could wait while you made an offering and a prayer to Omkar, and then you could journey on to Chunda.”  To himself he muttered in English:  “By God!  I’ll not stand for that slimy brute, Nana Sahib’s, possession of the girl—­she’s too good.  I know enough now to denounce him.”

In council with himself, standing Captain Barlow firmly on his feet to face the realities, he realised the impossibility of being anything more to Bootea than just a Sahib who had by fate been thrown into her path temporarily.  And then, feeling the sway, the compelling force of a fascinating femininity he almost trembled for himself.  Weaker sahibs—­gad! he knew several, one a Deputy Commissioner.  A beautiful little Kashmiri girl had nursed him through cholera when even his own servants had fled.  The Kashmiri, who had the dainty flower-like sweetness of a Japanese maid, and practically the same code, had lived in his protection before this.  After the nursing incident he had married her, with benefit of clergy, and the result had been hell, a living suicide, ostracism.  A good officer, he still remained Deputy Commissioner, the highest official of the district, but the social excellence was wiped out—­he was a pariah, an outcast.  And the girl, who now could not remain just a native, could not attain to the dignity of a Deputy-Commissioner Memsahib.