“Ha, sahib.”

“There was a Rangar here not very long ago.”  This man evidently knew the proper title to give a he true believer of the proudest race there is.  Ali Partab’s heart began to go out to him—­“an officer, I think, once of the Rajput Horse, who very kindly carried letters for me.  Perhaps you know of some other gentleman of your race about to travel northward?  He could earn, at least, gratitude.”

“So-ho!” thought Ali Partab to himself.  “I have known men of his race who would have offered money, to be spat on!—­Not now, sahib,” he answered aloud.

“Mahommed Gunga was the officer’s name.  Do you know him, or know of him, by any chance?”

“Ha, sahib, I know him well.  It is an honor.”

The Scotsman smiled.  “He must be very far away by this time.  How many are there, I wonder, in India who have such things said of them when their backs are turned?”

“More than a few, sahib!  I would draw steel for the good name of more than a hundred men whom I know, and there be many others!”

“Men of your own race?”

“And yours, sahib.”

There was no bombast in the man’s voice; it was said good-naturedly, as a man might say, “There are some friends to whom I would lend money.”  No man with any insight could mistake the truth that underlay the boast.  The Scotsman bowed.

“I am glad, indeed, to have met you.  Will you sit down a little while?”

“Nay, sahib.  The hour is late.  I was but keeping the blood moving in this horse of mine.”

“Well, tell me, since you won’t stay, have you any notion who the man was whom Mahommed Gunga sent to get my letters?  My daughter handed them to him one evening, late, at this door.”

“I am he, sahib.”

“Then—­I understood—­perhaps I was mistaken—­I thought it was his man who came?”

“Praised be Allah, I am his man, sahib!”

“Oh!  I wonder whether my servants praise God for the privilege!” McClean made the remark only half-aloud and in English.  Ali Partab could not have understood the words, but he may have caught their meaning, for he glanced sideways at the old hag mumbling in the shadow and grinned into his beard.  “Are you in communication with him?  Could you get a letter to him?”

“I have no slightest notion where he is, sahib.”

“If my letters could once reach him, wherever he might be, I would feel confident of their arriving at their destination.”

“I, too, sahib!”

“I sent one letter—­to a government official.  It cannot have reached him, for there should have been an answer and none has come.  It had reference to this terrible suttee business.  Suttee is against the law as well as against all dictates of reason and humanity; yet the Hindoos make a constant practice of it here under our very eyes.  These native states are under treaty to observe the law.  I intend to do all in my power to put a stop to their ghoulish practices, and Maharajah Howrah knows what my intentions are.  It must be a Mohammedan, this time, to whom I intrust my correspondence on suttee!”