an instrument, if needs be.
But the Prince's teeth were gleaming in a smile. And he was saying:
"If the play is over, Sirdar, turn your mount over to the _syce_ and
pop up here beside Captain Barlow--I'll tool you home. The Captain
might like a peg."

The bay Arabs swirled the brake along the smooth roadway that lay like
a wide band of coral between giant green walls of gold-mohr and
tamarind; and sometimes a pipal, its white bole and branches gleaming
like the bones of a skeleton through leaves of the deepest emerald, and
its roots daubed with the red paint of devotion to the tree god. Here
and there a neem, its delicate branches dusted with tiny white star
blossoms, cast a sensuous elusive perfume to the vagrant breeze. Once
a gigantic jamon stretched its gnarled arms across the roadway as if a
devilfish held poised his tentacles to snatch from the brake its
occupants.

When they had swung in to the Sirdar's bungalow and clambered down from
the brake, Elizabeth said: "If you don't mind, General Baptiste, I'll
just drift around amongst these beautiful roses while you men have your
pegs. No, I don't care for tea," she said, in answer to his
suggestion. There was a mirthless smile on her lips as she added: "I'm
like Captain Barlow, I like the rose."

The three men sat on the verandah while a servant brought
brandy-and-soda, and Nana Sahib, with a restless perversity akin to the
torturing proclivity of a Hindu was quizzing the Frenchman about his
recruits.

"You'll find them no good," he assured Baptiste--"rebellious cusses,
worthless thieves. My Moslem friend, the King of Oudh, tried them out.
He got up a regiment of them--Budhuks, Bagrees--all sorts; it was named
the Wolf Regiment--that was the only clever thing about it, the name.
They stripped the uniforms from the backs of the officers sent to drill
them and kicked them out of camp; said the officers put on swank;
wouldn't clean their own horses and weapons, same as the other men."

Then he switched the torture--made it more acute; wanted to know what
Sirdar Baptiste had got them for.

The Frenchman fumed inwardly. Nana Sahib was at the bottom of the
whole murderous scheme, and here, like holding a match over a keg of
powder, he must talk about it in front of the Englishman.

When the brandy was brought Nana Sahib put hand over the top of his
glass.

"Not drinking, Prince?" Barlow asked.

"No," Nana Sahib answered, "a Brahmin must diet; holiness