ng on with
quick interest, answering questions that were put to them with frank
smiles and laughter. Being dressed in heavy sheepskin outer coats to
keep out the cold, no one guessed that they were other than they seemed,
poor travellers' children, until at the end of a long row of picketed
horses at the further end of the courtyard, Akbar saw Horse-chestnut,
Foster-father's pony. Now Foster-father had only had time to tie the
poor beast head and heel, so there the honest creature stood, looking
very dejected, with emptiness before it, while the troopers' horses
beside him were enjoying great bundles of green grass. The little fellow
flushed up in a moment; he called loudly to a man who stood near:

"Ho! slave there! bring my pony grass--dost hear? and be quick!"

The man laughed. "Alah!" he said; "whose son be you to give orders that
fashion?"

"Whose son?" echoed the child passionately. "I am----"

But Bija clung to his arm. "H'st, Mirak!" she whispered. "Remember what
Head-nurse said that we were not to tell----"

Akbar stood irresolute; he was wise beyond his years. "But
Horse-chestnut must not be hungry. I won't have it!--he shall have
grass," he said angrily; then, without another word he walked up to the
next horse, took a great armful of the grass that lay in front of it and
scattered it before his favourite.

"So there! slave!" he cried defiantly with a stamp of his foot.

The man looked at him curiously, said nothing, but went over to some
others and began to whisper.

A minute afterwards, Foster-father returning, found the children the
centre of a little crowd eager in enquiry whence they came, whither they
were going, and, ere he could get them safely to their quarters, the
attention of the Captain of the Escort had been arrested, he came out
frowning and fuming.

"We march again in an hour," he said angrily to Foster-father. "On thy
head be it if thou can'st not keep thy young fighting cock in
order--'twill be all over the town by midnight!"

Foster-father did not often let his temper get the better of his
prudence, but he could not resist saying mildly: "Kingship is like the
musk-bag, friend, that was broken at the royal child's birth. It
diffuses its perfume over the habitable world, and none can mistake it."

The Captain of the Escort shrugged his shoulders. "Then it shall smell
in the wilderness, friend; for I run no risks of rescue this side the
passes. So bid the women give the young crow