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?"

The Risaldar bowed low again.

"I would speak with that ayah, heavenborn!" he muttered, almost into his
beard. She could hardly catch the words.

"