child! And the man had whole
cityfuls of people to do his basest bidding--girls, women! Why in the name
of passionate folly _this_ one in particular? asked the little man,
and scowled at the world, and licked his parched lips with a blackened
tongue. It was the way of the master, and that was all he knew. Just
because she sought to evade him...

His eye caught a whole row of high-plumed canes bending in unison, and
then the tails of silk that hung before his neck flapped and fell. The
breeze was growing stronger. Somehow it took the stiff stillness out of
things--and that was well.

"Hullo!" said the gaunt man.

All three stopped abruptly.

"What?" asked the master. "What?"

"Over there," said the gaunt man, pointing up the valley.

"What?"

"Something coming towards us."

And as he spoke a yellow animal crested a rise and came bearing down upon
them. It was a big wild dog, coming before the wind, tongue out, at a
steady pace, and running with such an intensity of purpose that he did not
seem to see the horsemen he approached. He ran with his nose up,
following, it was plain, neither scent nor quarry. As he drew nearer the
little man felt for his sword. "He's mad," said the gaunt rider.

"Shout!" said the little man, and shouted.

The dog came on. Then when the little man's blade was already out, it
swerved aside and went panting by them and passed. The eyes of the little
man followed its flight. "There was no foam," he said. For a space the man
with the silver-studded bridle stared up the valley. "Oh, come on!" he
cried at last. "What does it matter?" and jerked his horse into movement
again.

The little man left the insoluble mystery of a dog that fled from nothing
but the wind, and lapsed into profound musings on human character. "Come
on!" he whispered to himself. "Why should it be given to one man to say
'Come on!' with that stupendous violence of effect? Always, all his life,
the man with the silver bridle has been saying that. If _I_ said
it--!" thought the little man. But people marvelled when the master was
disobeyed even in the wildest things. This half-caste girl seemed to him,
seemed to every one, mad--blasphemous almost. The little man, by way of
comparison, reflected on the gaunt rider with the scarred lip, as stalwart
as his master, as brave and, indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him there
was obedience, nothing but to give obedience duly and stoutly...

Certain sensations of the hands a