at of a workman, and now it showed no sign of a burning.

"What say you, Ajeet Singh?" Sookdee asked.

"As to the ordeal," the Chief answered, "according to our faith
Bhowanee has spoken. But know you this, though the scar is in my palm,
in my heart is no treachery. As to Hunsa, the ordeal has cleared him
in your minds, and perhaps it is true. We will go forth to the decoity
and what is to be will be. We are but servants of Bhowanee, and if we
make vow to sacrifice a buffalo at her temple perhaps she will keep us
in her protection."

Ajeet knew that he had been tricked somehow, but to dispute the ordeal,
the judgment of the black goddess, would be like an apostacy--it would
turn every Bagree against him--it would be a shatterment of their
tenets. So he said nothing but accepted mutely the decree.

But Bootea's sharp eyes had been busy. She had watched the blacksmith,
to whom Ajeet had paid little attention. In the faces of Hunsa and
Sookdee she had caught flitting expressions of treachery. She knew
that Ajeet had been guiltless of treason to the others, for she had
been close to him. Besides she had, when roused, an imperious temper.
The Bagree women were allowed greater freedom than other women of
Hindustan, even greater freedom than the Mahratta females who, though
they appeared in public unveiled, in the homes were treated as
children, almost as slaves. The Bagree women at times even led gangs
of decoits. Her anger had been roused by Sookdee earlier, and now
rising from where she sat, she strode imperiously forward till she
faced the jamadars:

"Your Chief is too proud to deny this trick that you, Sookdee and
Hunsa, and that accursed labourer of another caste, the blacksmith,
that shoer of Mahratta horses whom Hunsa has bribed, have put upon him
in the name of Bhowanee."

Sookdee stared in affrighted silence, and Hunsa's bellow of rage was
stilled by Ajeet, who whirling upon him, the jade-handled knife in his
grip, commanded: "Still your clamour! The Gulab has but seen the
truth. I, also, know that, but a soldier may not speak as may one of
his women-kind."

There was a sudden hush. A tremor of apprehension had vibrated from
Bagree to Bagree; the jamadars felt it. A spark, one lunge with a
knife, and they would be at each other's throats; the men of Alwar
against the men of Karowlee; even caste against caste, for the Bagrees
from Alwar were of the Solunkee caste, while the Karowlee men were of