little more than an ape--stood quivering in the moonlight alone, except
for himself. So, suddenly, he acted as if energised by logic, as if
mental deduction made plain the way.

"You are right," he said: "we must go."

He laid a hand upon the bridle-rein of the grey, that had stood there
with the submission of a cavalry horse, saying, "Come, Bootea."

Foot in stirrup he swung to the saddle; and as the grey turned, he
reached down both hands saying: "Come, I'll take you wherever you want
to go."

But the girl drew back and shook her beautifully-modelled head,--the
delicate head with the black hair smoothed back to simplicity, and her
voice was half sob: "It can't be, Sahib, I am but--" She checked; to
speak of the decoits even, might lead to talk that would cause the
Sahib to go to their camp, and he would be killed; and she would be a
witness to testify against her own people, the slayers of the sepoys.

Barlow laughed, "Because you are a girl who dances you are not to be
saved, eh?" he said. "But listen, the Sahibs do not leave women at the
mercy of villains; you must come," and his strong sun-browned hands
were held out.

Bootea, wonderingly, as if some god had called to her, put her hands in
Barlow's, and with a twist of his strong arms she was swung across his
knees.

"Put your arms about my waist, Gulab," he said, as the grey, to the
tickle of a spur, turned to the road. "Don't lean away from me," he
said, presently, "because we have a long way to go and that tires.
That's better, girl," as her warm breast pressed against his body.

The big grey, with a deep breath, and a sniffle of satisfaction,
scenting that his head was turned homeward, paced along the ghost-strip
of roadway in long free strides. Even when a jackal, or it might have
been a honey-badger, slipped across the road in front, a drifting
shadow, the Turcoman only rattled the snaffle-bit in his teeth, cocked
his ears, and then blew a breath of disdain from his big nostrils.

In the easy swinging cradle of the horse's smooth stride the minds of
both Barlow and the Gulab relaxed into restfulness; her arms about the
strong body, Bootea felt as if she clung to a tower of strength--that
she was part of a magnetic power; and the nightmare that had been, so
short a time since, had floated into a dream of content, of glorious
peace.

Barlow was troubling over the problem of the gorilla-faced man, and
thinking how close he had been to death--a