He swore, deep and fiercely, as he spurred and wheeled, and cantered after her.  His great stallion could overhaul her pony in a minute, going stride for stride; the wall was more than two miles long with no break in it other than locked gates; there was no hurry.  He watched her through half-closed, glowering, appraising eyes as he cantered in her wake, admiring the frail, slight figure in the gray cotton habit, and bridling his desire to make her—­seize her reins, and halt, and make her—­admit him master of the situation.

As he reached her stirrup, she reined in and faced him, after a hurried glance that told her her duenna had failed her.  The old woman was invisible.

“Will you leave that body to lie there in the dust and sun?” she asked indignantly.

“I am no vulture, or jackal, or hyena, sahiba!” he smiled.  “I do not eat carrion!” He seemed to think that that was a very good retort, for he showed his wonderful white teeth until his handsome face was the epitome of self-satisfied amusement.  His horse blocked the way again, and all retreat was cut off, for his escort were behind her, and three of them had ridden to the right, outside the row of trees, to cut off possible escape in that direction.  “Was it not well that I was near, sahiba?  Would it have been better to die at the hands of a Maharati of no caste—?”

“Than to see blood spilt—­than to be beholden to a murderer?  Infinitely better!  There was no need to kill that man—­I could have quieted him.  Let me pass, please, Jaimihr-sahib!”

He reined aside; but if she thought that cold scorn or hot anger would either of them quell his ardor, she had things reversed.  The less she behaved as a native woman would have done—­the more she flouted him —­the more enthusiastic he became.

“Sahiba!”—­he trotted beside her, his great horse keeping up easily with her pony’s canter—­“I have told you oftener than once that I make a good friend and a bad enemy!”

“And I have answered oftener than once that I do not need your friendship, and am not afraid of you!  You forget that the British Government will hold your royal brother liable for my safety and my father’s!”

“You, too, overlook certain things, sahiba.”  He spoke evenly, with a little space between each word.  With the dark look that accompanied it, with the blood barely dry yet on the dusty road behind, his speech was not calculated to reassure a slip of a girl, gray-eyed or not, stiff-chinned or not, borne up or not by Scots enthusiasm for a cause.  “This is a native state.  My brother rules.  The British—­”

“Are near enough, and strong enough, to strike and to bring you and your brother to your knees if you harm a British woman!” she retorted.  “You forget—­when the British Government gives leave to missionaries to go into a native state, it backs them up with a strong arm!”