in the north."

"In what have I offended, sahib?"

"In nothing. Therefore there is a trust imposed."

The man salaamed. Mahommed Gunga produced his little handful of gold
mohurs and divided it into two equal portions; one he handed to the
squire.

"Stay here. Be always either in the caravansary or else at call. Should
the old woman who serves Miss Maklin-sahib, the padre-sahib's daughter
come and ask thy aid, then saddle swiftly the three horses I will leave
with thee, and bear Miss Maklin-sahib and her father to my cousin Alwa's
place. Present two of the gold mohurs to the hag, should that happen."

"But sahib--two mohurs? I could buy ten such hags outright for the
price!"

"She has my word in the matter! It is best to have her eager to win
great reward. The hag will stay awake, but see to it that thou sleepest
not!"

"And for how long must I stay here, sahib?"

"One month--six months--a year--who knows? Until the hag summons thee,
or I, by writing or by word of mouth, relieve thee of thy trust."

At sunset he sent the squire to Miss McClean for the letters he had
promised to deliver; and at one hour after sunset, when the heat of the
earth had begun to rise and throw back a hot blast to the darkened sky
and the little eddies of luke-warm surface wind made movement for horse
and man less like a fight with scorching death, he rode off, with his
new servant, on the two horses left to him of the five with which he
came.

A six-hundred-mile ride without spare horses, in the heat of northern
India, was an undertaking to have made any strong man flinch. The
stronger the man, and the more soldierly, the better able he would be to
realize the effort it would call for. But Mahommed Gunga rode as though
he were starting on a visit to a near-by friend; he was not given
to crossing bridges before he reached them, nor to letting prospects
influence his peace of mind. He was a soldier. He took precautions
first, when and where such were possible, then rode and looked fate in
the eye.

He appeared to take no more notice of the glowering looks that
followed him from stuffy balconies and dense-packed corners than of the
mosquitoes to and the heat. Without hurry he picked his way through
the thronged streets, where already men lay in thousands to escape the
breathlessness of walled interiors; the gutters seemed like trenches
where the dead of a devastated city had been laid; the murmur was like
the voice of storm-winds g