im. Now pick up the heavenborn yonder in those great
arms of thine, and bear her gently! Gently, I said! So! Have a care,
now, that she is not injured against the corners. My honor, aye, my
honor and yours and all our duty to the Raj you bear and--and have a
care of the corners?"

"Aye," answered the half-brother, stolidly, holding Ruth as though she
had been a little bag of rice.

Again the Risaldar turned to the High Priest, and eyed him through eyes
that glittered.

"We are ready!" he growled. "Lead on to thy hiding-place!"

VIII.

The guns rode first from Doonha, for the guns take precedence. The
section ground-scouts were acting scouts for the division, two hundred
yards ahead of every one. Behind the guns rode Colonel Forrester-Carter,
followed by the wagon with the wounded; and last of all the two
companies of the Thirty-third trudged through the stifling heat.

But, though the guns were ahead of every one, they had to suit their
pace to that of the men who marched. For one thing, there might be an
attack at any minute, and guns that are caught at close quarters at a
distance from their escort are apt to be astonishingly helpless. They
can act in unison with infantry; but alone, on bad ground, in the
darkness, and with their horses nearly too tired to drag them, a leash
of ten puppies in a crowd would be an easier thing to hurry with.

Young Bellairs had his men dismounted and walking by their mounts. Even
the drivers led their horses, for two had been taken from each gun to
drag the wounded, and the guns are calculated as a load for six, not
four.

As he trudged through the blood-hot dust in clumsy riding-boots and
led his charger on the left flank of the guns, Harry Bellairs fumed and
fretted in a way to make no man envy him. The gloomy, ghost-like trees,
that had flitted past him on the road to Doonha, crawled past him
now--slowly and more slowly as his tired feet blistered in his boots.
He could not mount and ride, though, for very shame, while his men were
marching, and he dared not let them ride, for fear the horses might give
in. He could just trudge and trudge, and hate himself and every one, and
wonder.

What had the Risaldar contrived to do? Why hadn't he packed up his
wife's effects the moment that his orders came and ridden off with her
and the section at once, instead of waiting three hours or more for an
escort for her? Why hadn't he realized at once that orders that came in
a hurr