“That is true, Sahib, but also death is evil—­sometimes.”

“I have brought this to the Sahib,” Bootea said as she drew a paper from her breast and passed it to the Captain.  It was the pardon the Resident had given that morning to Ajeet Singh.

Barlow, though startled, schooled his voice to an even tone as he asked:  “Where did you get this—­where is Ajeet?”

“As to the paper, Sahib, what matters how Bootea came by it; as to Ajeet, he is in the grasp of the Dewan who learned that he had been to the Resident in the way of treachery.”

“Ajeet thought Nana Sahib had stolen you, Bootea.”

“Yes, Sahib, for he did not find me when he went to the camp, and I did not go there.  But now he would betray the Sahibs, that is why I have brought back the paper of protection.”

“Will they kill Ajeet?” Barlow asked.

“I will tell the Sahib what is,” the girl answered, drawing her sari over her curled-in feet, and leaning one arm on Barlow’s chair.  “The decoity that was committed last night was, as Ajeet feared, because of treachery on the part of the Dewan.  I will tell it all, though it might be thought a treachery to the decoits.  As to being false to one’s own clan Ajeet is, because he is a Bagree—­but I am not.”

Barlow pondered over this statement.  The girl had mystified him—­that is as to her breeding.  Sometimes she spoke in the first person and again in the third person, like so many natives, as if her language had been picked up colloquially.  But then the use of the third person when she used Bootea instead of a nominative pronoun might be due to a cultured deference toward a Sahib.

“I thought you were not of these people—­you are of high caste, Bootea,” he said presently.

He heard the girl gasp, and looking quickly into her eyes saw that they were staring as if in fright.

For a space of a few seconds she did not answer; then she said, and Barlow felt her voice was being held under control by force of will:  “I am Bootea, one in the care of Ajeet Singh.  That is the present, Sahib, and the past—­” She touched the iron bracelet on her arm, and looked into Barlow’s eyes as if she asked him to bury the past.

“Sorry, girl—­forgive me,” he said.

“Ajeet has told why the men were brought—­for what purpose?”

“Yes, Gulab; to kill Amir Khan.”

“And when they refused to go on this mission, the Dewan, to get them in his power, connived with Hunsa to make the decoity so that their lives would be forfeit, then if the Dewan punished them for not going the Raja of Karowlee could not make trouble.  Hunsa told the Dewan that if I were sent to dance before Amir Khan, some of the men going as musicians and actors, the Chief would fall in love with me, and that I could betray him to those who would kill him; that he would come to my tent at night unobserved—­because he has a wife with him—­and that Hunsa would creep into the tent and kill him as he slept; then we would escape.”