break loose and gut the valley. Our villages are in the valley,
and we shall not escape. That regiment are devils. They broke Khoda
Yar's breast-bone with kicks when he tried to take the rifles; and if
we touch this child they will fire and rape and plunder for a month,
till nothing remains. Better to send a man back to take the message
and get a reward. I say that this child is their God, and that they
will spare none of us, nor our women, if we harm him."

It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom of the Colonel, who made the
diversion, and an angry and heated discussion followed. Wee Willie
Winkie, standing over Miss Allardyce, waited the upshot. Surely his
"wegiment," his own "wegiment," would not desert him if they knew of
his extremity.

* * * * *

The riderless pony brought the news to the 195th, though there had
been consternation in the Colonel's household for an hour before. The
little beast came in through the parade-ground in front of the main
barracks, where the men were settling down to play Spoil-five till the
afternoon. Devlin, the Colour Sergeant of E Company, glanced at the
empty saddle and tumbled through the barrack-rooms, kicking up each
Room Corporal as he passed. "Up, ye beggars! There's something
happened to the Colonel's son," he shouted.

"He could n't fall off! S'elp me, 'e could n't fall off," blubbered a
drummer-boy. "Go an' hunt acrost the river. He's over there if he's
anywhere, an' maybe those Pathans have got 'im. For the love o' Gawd
don't look for 'im in the nullahs! Let's go over the river."

"There's sense in Mott yet," said Devlin. "E Company, double out to
the river--sharp!"

So E Company, in its shirt-sleeves mainly, doubled for the dear life,
and in the rear toiled the perspiring Sergeant, adjuring it to double
yet faster. The cantonment was alive with the men of the 195th hunting
for Wee Willie Winkie, and the Colonel finally overtook E Company, far
too exhausted to swear, struggling in the pebbles of the river-bed.

Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie's Bad Men were discussing
the wisdom of carrying off the child and the girl, a lookout fired two
shots.

"What have I said?" shouted Din Mahommed. "There is the warning! The
pulton are out already and are coming across the plain! Get away! Let
us not be seen with the boy!"

The men waited for an instant, and then, as another shot was fired,
withdrew into the hills, silently as they ha