“Others—­who are they?”

But the Gulab had turned from him and was listening, her eyes turned to the road up which floated from beyond upon the hushed silence that was about them,—­that seemed deeper because of the dead man lying in the moonlight,—­the beat of Hunsa’s feet on the road.  Once there was the whining note of wheels that claimed a protest from a dry axle; once there was a clang as if steel had struck steel; and on the droning through the night-hush was a rasping hum as if voices clamoured in the distance.  This was the bee-hive stirring of the startled village.

“What is it, Bootea?” Barlow asked.

The eyes raised to his face were full of fright, a pleading fright.  “Sahib,” she answered, “do not ask—­just go, because—­”

“Yes, girl, why?”

“That this is dead (and her hand gestured toward the slain Bagree) and that others are dead, is; but you,—­will you mount the horse and go back the way you came, Sahib?”

Her small fingers clutched the sleeve of the coat he wore—­it was of hunting cloth, red-and-green:  “Others are dead yonder, and evil is in the hearts of those that live.  Go, Sahib—­please go.”

Barlow’s mind was racing fast, in more materialistic grooves than the Gulab’s.  There was something about it he didn’t understand; something the girl did not want to tell him; some horrible thing that she was afraid of—­her face was full of suppressed dread.

Suddenly, through no sequence of reasoning, in fact there was no data to go upon, nothing except that a girl—­the Gulab was just that—­stood there afraid—­through him she had just escaped from a man who was little more than an ape—­stood quivering in the moonlight alone, except for himself.  So, suddenly, he acted as if energised by logic, as if mental deduction made plain the way.

“You are right,” he said:  “we must go.”

He laid a hand upon the bridle-rein of the grey, that had stood there with the submission of a cavalry horse, saying, “Come, Bootea.”

Foot in stirrup he swung to the saddle; and as the grey turned, he reached down both hands saying:  “Come, I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

But the girl drew back and shook her beautifully-modelled head,—­the delicate head with the black hair smoothed back to simplicity, and her voice was half sob:  “It can’t be, Sahib, I am but—­” She checked; to speak of the decoits even, might lead to talk that would cause the Sahib to go to their camp, and he would be killed; and she would be a witness to testify against her own people, the slayers of the sepoys.

Barlow laughed, “Because you are a girl who dances you are not to be saved, eh?” he said.  “But listen, the Sahibs do not leave women at the mercy of villains; you must come,” and his strong sun-browned hands were held out.

Bootea, wonderingly, as if some god had called to her, put her hands in Barlow’s, and with a twist of his strong arms she was swung across his knees.