To the northward of Hanadra, blue in the sweltering heat-haze, lay Siroeh, walled in with sun-baked mud and listless.  Through a wooden gate at one end of the village filed a string of women with their water-pots.  Oxen, tethered underneath the thatched eaves or by the thirsty-looking trees, lay chewing the cud, almost too lazy to flick the flies away.  Even the village goats seemed overcome with lassitude.  Here and there a pariah dog sneaked in and out among the shadows or lay and licked his sores beside an offal-heap; but there seemed to be no energy in anything.  The bone-dry, hot-weather wind had shriveled up verdure and ambition together.

But in the mud-walled cottages, where men were wont to doze through the long, hot days, there were murmurings and restless movement.  Men lay on thong-strung beds, and talked instead of dreaming, and the women listened and said nothing—­which is the reverse of custom.  Hanadra was what it always had been, thatched, sun-baked lassitude; but underneath the thatch there thrummed a beehive atmosphere of tension.

In the center of the village, where the one main road that led from the main gate came to an abrupt end at a low mud wall, stood a house that was larger than the others and somewhat more neatly kept; there had been an effort made at sweeping the enclosure that surrounded it on all four sides, and there was even whitewash, peeling off in places but still comparatively white, smeared on the sun-cracked walls.

Here, besides murmurings and movement, there was evidence of real activity.  Tethered against the wall on one side of the house stood a row of horses, saddled and bridled and bearing evidence of having traveled through the heat; through the open doorway the sunshine glinted on a sword-hilt and amid the sound of many voices rang the jingling of a spur as some one sat cornerwise on a wooden table and struck his toe restlessly against the leg.

Another string of women started for the water-hole, with their picturesque brass jars perched at varying angles on their heads; and as each one passed the doorway of this larger house she turned and scowled.  A Rajput, lean and black-bearded and swaggering, came to the door and watched them, standing proudly with his arms folded across his breast.  As the last woman showed her teeth at him, he laughed aloud.

“Nay!” said a voice inside.  “Have done with that!  Is noticing the Hindu women fit sport for a Rajput?”

The youngster turned and faced the old, black-bearded veteran who spoke.

“If I had my way,” he answered, “I would ride roughshod through this village, and fire the thatch.  They fail to realize the honor that we pay them by a visit!”

“Aye, hothead!  And burn thy brother’s barn with what is in it!  The Hindus here are many, and we are few, and there will be burnings and saberings a-plenty before a week is past, if I read the signs aright!  Once before have I heard such murmurings.  Once before I have seen chupatties sent from house to house at sunset—­and that time blood ran red along the roadside for a month to follow!  Keep thy sword sharp a while and wait the day!”