ting
his assailant--but not quite----

Down came the leaded stick on the back of his bridle hand, cutting it
open, grazing and bruising the flesh. With an oath he dropped the reins
and seized them in his right hand.

"Rather neatly done!" he remarked, smiling at the dismay in Roy's eyes.
"Ought to have floored him, though--the murdering brute!"

"Lance, you'd no business----"

"Oh, drop it. This isn't polo. It's a game of Aunt Sally. No charge for
a shy----!" As he spoke, a sharp fragment of brick struck his cheek and
drew blood. "Damn them. Getting above themselves. If it rested with me
I'd charge. We can hold 'em, though. Straighten the line."

"But your hand----"

"My hand can wait. I've got another." And he rode on leaving Roy with a
burning inner sense as of actual coals of fire heaped on his unworthy
self.

But urgent need for action left no leisure for thought. Somehow the line
was straightened; somehow they extricated themselves from the
embarrassing attentions of the mob. Carnegie returned with armed police;
and four files were lined up in front of the troops; the warning clearly
given; the response--fresh uproar, fresh showers of stones....

Then eight shots rang out--and it sufficed.

At the voice of the rifle, the sting of buckshot, valour and fury
evaporated like smoke. And directly the crowd broke, firing ceased. A
few were wounded; one was killed--and carried off with loud
lamentations. An ordered advance, with fixed bayonets, completed the
effect that nothing else on earth could have produced:--and the Grand
Processional was over.

It emerged from the Bathi Gate a shadow of itself, having left more than
half its numbers on guard at vital points along the route.

"Scotched--not killed," was Lance's pithy verdict on the proceedings.
"As a bit of mere police work--excellent. As to the result--we shall
see. The C.O. must have been thankful his force wasn't a shade weaker."

This, unofficially, to Roy, who had secured leave off for tiffin at the
Eltons', and had ridden forward to report his departure and inquire
after the damaged hand, that concerned him more than anything else just
then--not even excepting Rose.

It had been roughly wrapped in a silk handkerchief; and Lance
pooh-poohed concern.

"Hurts a bit, of course. But it's no harm. I'll have it scientifically
cleaned up by Collins. Don't look pathetic about nothing, old man. My
silly fault for failing to ride the beggar down. Just as