And yet she was dry-eyed, and her chin was high; for they are a strange breed, these Anglo-Saxon women who follow the men they love to the lonely danger-zone.  Ruth Bellairs could have felt no joy in her position; she had heard her husband growling his complaint at being forced to leave her, and she guessed what her danger was.  Fear must have shrunk her heartbeats and loneliness have tried her courage.  But there was an ayah in the room with her, a low-caste woman of the conquered race; and pride of country came to her assistance.  She was firm-lipped and, to outward seeming, brave as she was beautiful.

Even when the door resounded twice to the sharp blow of a saber-hilt, and the ayah’s pock-marked ebony took on a shade of gray, she stood like a queen with an army at her back and neither blanched nor trembled.

“Who is that, ayah?” she demanded.

The ayah shrank into herself and showed the whites of her eyes and grinned, as a pariah dog might show its teeth—­afraid, but scenting carrion.

“Go and see!”

The ayah shuddered and collapsed, babbling incoherencies and calling on a horde of long-neglected gods to witness she was innocent.  She clutched strangely at her breast and used only one hand to drag her shawl around her face.  While she babbled she glanced wild-eyed around the long, low-ceilinged room.  Ruth Bellairs looked down at her pityingly and went to the door herself and opened it.

“Salaam, memsahib!” boomed a deep voice from the darkness.

Ruth Bellairs started and the ayah screamed.

“Who are you?  Enter—­let me see you!”

A black beard and a turban and the figure of a man—­and then white teeth and a saber-hilt and eyes that gleamed moved forward from the darkness.

“It is I, Mahommed Khan!” boomed the voice again, and the Risaldar stepped out into the lamplight and closed the door behind him.  Then, with a courtly, long-discarded sweep of his right arm, he saluted.

“At the heavenborn’s service!”

“Mahommed Khan!  Thank God!”

The old man’s shabbiness was very obvious as he faced her, with his back against the iron-studded door; but he stood erect as a man of thirty, and his medals and his sword-hilt and his silver scabbard-tip were bright.

“Tell me, Mahommed Khan, you have seen my husband?”

He bowed.

“You have spoken to him?”

The old man bowed again.

“He left you in my keeping, heavenborn.  I am to bring you safe to Jundhra!”

She held her hand out and he took it like a cavalier, bending until he could touch her fingers with his lips.

“What is the meaning of this hurrying of the guns to Jundhra, Risaldar?”

“Who knows, memsahib!  The orders of the Sirkar come, and we of the service must obey.  I am thy servant and the Sirkar’s!”

“You, old friend—­that were servant, as you choose to call it, to my husband’s father!  I am a proud woman to have such friends at call!” She pointed to the ayah, recovering sulkily and rearranging the shawl about her shoulders.  “That I call service, Risaldar.  She cowers when a knock comes at the door!  I need you, and you answer a hardly spoken prayer; what is friendship, if yours is not?”