! They will
burn Bholat behind you. Let them! Let them, too, pay the price. Swoop
down on Harumpore, sahib--join there with Kendrick sahib's command.
There make a fresh plan, and swoop down on some other place. But move,
quickly, and keep on moving! And waste no time on places that are
already lost."

"Then you would have me leave those women and that child, that you tell
me of to their fate?"

"Nay, sahib! I am not of your command. I have done my duty to the Raj,
and I now go about my own business."

"And that is?"

"To repay a debt that I owe the Raj, sahib!"

"Your answers are rather unnecessarily evasive, Juggut Khan. Be good
enough to explain yourself!"

"I ride back to Jailpore, sahib. I would have stayed there, but it
seemed right and soldierly to bring through the news first. Now, I
return to do what I may to rescue those whom I hid there. I owe that to
the Raj!"

"You mean that you will ride alone?"

"At least half of the distance, sahib. I had a favor to ask."

"Well?"

"Are you marching north, sahib?"

"I have not determined yet."

"Determined, sahib! This is no hour for dallying! Give orders now! Up!
Strike, sahib! Listen! Should you march on Jailpore, the mutineers, who
far outnumber you, will learn beforehand of your coming, and will put
the place in a state of defense. It may take you weeks to fight your way
in! Leave Jailpore, and those who are left in it to me, and lend me that
non-commissioned officer of yours who guards the crossroads, and his
twelve men. With a few, we can manage what a whole division might fail
to do. And you march north, sahib, and burn and harry and slay! Strike
quickly, where the trouble is yet brewing, and not where the day is lost
already!"

It was case of the British power in India on one side of the scale,
against three women and a child on the other; sentiment in the balance
against strategy. And strategy must win, especially since this Rajput
was offering his services.

"What are their names, you say?"

"Mrs. Leslie, wife of Captain Leslie; Mrs. Standish, wife of Colonel
Standish and mother of Mrs. Leslie; Mrs. Leslie's child--I know not his
name, he is but a child in arms--and the child's nurse."

The general still found it difficult to make up his mind.

"What proof have I of you?" he asked.

"Sahib, my honor is in question! I have a debt to pay!"

"What debt?"

"To the Raj."

"To the Raj?"

"Aye, Sahib! I have but one son, and his life was