e
latter darted away and, in a few seconds, returned leading the two
horses.

"Shall we set the houses alight, before we start, sahib?" one of
the troopers asked.

"No; they may rally in a minute or two, and the sooner we are out
of it, the better."

He turned and started at once and, as he did so, a dropping fire
from matchlocks and guns was opened upon them. The villagers' arms
were, however, wholly untrustworthy, and the powder bad. One of the
troopers was hit in the arm but, with that exception, they rode out
unharmed.

"What does it all mean, Abdool?" Harry asked as, after riding fast
for a quarter of a mile, they broke into a slower pace. "Of course,
they must in some way have recognized me, for I heard some of them
saying, 'Death to the English infidel!'"

"It was through me that they recognized you, sahib," Abdool said.
"They seized me before they entered your hut, and tied a bandage
round my mouth, to prevent my giving any alarm. As they took me out
into the road, one of them said:

"'Son of Sheitan, I knew you directly I saw you. You were with that
English officer, in Nagpore. Then, when I looked at the head of
your party I saw that, though he had changed his dress, and stained
his face to the colour of ours, it was the same man who came as an
envoy to our rajah, and whose house we attacked.

"'We shall hear what the rajah says to him when we take him to
Nagpore.'"

"I understand now, Abdool. I have thought of my own disguise, and
that of the troopers; but as you always, except when riding behind
me, dress in your native clothes, it seemed to me a matter of
course that you would pass without difficulty; and it never
occurred to me that you must, during our three months' stay at
Nagpore, have become known by sight to most of the people there. It
is a bad blunder, and it will be a lesson to me, in future."

Then he turned, and spoke to the troopers.

"You have done well, indeed, tonight," he said, "and I owe it to
you that I have escaped, if not death, an imprisonment of months.
If I had been taken to Nagpore, and handed over to the rajah, he
would doubtless have imprisoned me; but would not have ventured to
take my life, for he would have known that the part that he had
taken against us would be more readily forgiven, than the murder of
a British officer. But I do not think I should have reached the
palace. Furious as the people must be at their crushing defeat at
Assaye, they would have torn me