tten message from the
British would have been lost--stolen by Hunsa, and would have landed in
Nana Sahib's hands; and he would have been slain as the Patan, killer
of Amir Khan.

But the Gulab was right; from that time forward should she listen to
him and go on to Poona, God alone knew where it would lead to--misery.
It would be utter ruin morally, officially, in a caste way; even in
time passionate enthusiasm, engendered by her lovableness, dulled,
would bring utter debasement, degradation of spirit, of man fibre. It
was the wisdom of God that entailed upon the union of the white and
dark-skinned the bar sinister.

Until he slept, wrapped in his blankets on the sand beside his tethered
horse, Barlow was tortured by this mental inquisition. Even in his
troubled sleep there was a nightmare that waked him, panting and
exhausted, and the remembrance was vivid--Bootea lay beneath the mighty
paws of a tiger and he was beating hopelessly at the snarling brute
with a clubbed rifle.

CHAPTER XXX

In the morning Captain Barlow underwent a sartorial metamorphosis; he
attained to the sanctity of a Hindu pilgrim by the purchase of a
tight-ankled pair of white trousers to replace the voluminous baggy
ones of a Patan, and a blue shot-with-gold-thread Rajput turban. He
shoved the Patan turban with its conical fez in his saddle-bags, and
wound the many yards of blue material in a rakish criss-cross about his
shapely head, running a fold or two beneath his chin. The Patan
sheepskin coat was left with his horse.

When Bootea came at ten to where Barlow--who was now Jaswant
Singh--paced up and down with the swagger of a Rajput in front of the
_bunnia's_ shop, she stood for a little, her eyes searching the crowd
for her Sahib. When he laughed, and called softly, "Gulab," her eyes
almost wept for joy, for not seeing him at once, a dread that he had
gone had chilled her.

"You see how easy it is, in a good cause, to change one's caste," he
said.

"With you, Sahib, yes, because you can also change your skin."

There it was again, the indestructible barrier, the pigmented badge.
It drove the laugh from Barlow's lips.

"Why has the Afghan Musselman become a Hindu?" Bootea asked.

"I have no wish to anger these people who are on a holy pilgrimage by
going into their temples as a Moslem."

"You are going to the shrine of Omkar?" the Gulab asked aghast.

"Are you--again?" Barlow parried.

"Yes, Sahib, soon."

"I am g