“Captain, I have lived a long time in India, too long to be led away by quick impressions, as unfortunately Elizabeth was.  I’ve outlived my prejudices.  When the mhowa tree blooms I can take glorious pleasure from its gorgeous fragrant flowers and not quarrel with its leafless limbs.  When the pipal and the neem glisten with star flowers and sweeten the foetid night-air, it matters nothing to me that the natives believe evil gods home in the branches.  I know that even a cobra tries to get out of my way if I’ll let him, and I know that the natives have beauty in their natures—­one gets to almost love them as children.  So, my dear Captain, when you tell me that the Gulab rendered you and me and the British Raj this tremendous service, and add, quite unnecessarily, that she’s a good girl, I believe it all; we need never bring it up again.  Elizabeth has just made a mistake.  And, Barlow, men are always forgiving the mistakes of women where their feelings are concerned—­they must—­that is one of the proofs of their strength.  But these”—­and he patted the papers lovingly—­“well, they’re rather like a reprieve brought at the eleventh hour to a man who is to be executed.  We’re put in a difficult position, though.  To pass over in silence the killing of two soldiers would end only in the House of Commons; somebody would rise in his place and want to know why it had been hushed up.  But to take action, to create a stir, would give rise to a suspicion of the existence of this.”

Hodson rose from his chair and paced the floor, one hand clasped to his forehead, his small grey eyes carrying a dream-look as though he were seeking an occult enlightenment; then he sat down wearily, and spoke as if interpreting something that had been whispered him.

“Yes, Barlow, this decoit has been seized by the Nana Sahib lot.  His life was forfeit, and they’ve offered him his life back to come here and turn Approver—­to become a spy, not for us but as a spy on us for them.  Ajeet would know that information of his coming to me would be carried to them by spies—­the spies are always with me—­and his life wouldn’t be worth two annas.  I gave him that pardon because we have no power to seize him here, but it will make them think that we have fallen into the trap.  They might even believe—­wily and suspicious as they are—­that what he gleans here is the truth.

“There’s a curious efficacy, Barlow, in what I might call an affectation of simplicity.  You know those stupid heavy-headed crocodiles in that big pool of the Nerbudda below the marble gorge, and how they’ll take nearly an hour wallowing and sidling up to a mud-bank before they crawl out to bask in the sun; but just show the tip of your helmet above the rock and they’re gone.  That’s perhaps what I mean.  As we might say back in dear old London, this wily Rajput thinks he has pulled my leg.”

“I think, Colonel, that you are dead onto his wicket.”