r the sunlit stillness, save the three-fold sound of
their going--the clatter of hoofs, the clank and rattle of the
tonga-bar rising and falling to a tune of its own making, and the
brazen-throated twang of the horn, which the tonga-drivers of Upper
India have elevated to a fine art.

And on either hand, to the utmost limit of vision, lay the emptiness
of the desert, bounded by unfriendly hills. A pitiless country, where
the line of duty smites the eye at every turn; the line of beauty
being conspicuous only by its absence. A country that straightens the
back, and strings up nerve and muscle; where men learn to endure
hardness, and carry their lives in their hands with cheerful
unconcern, expecting and receiving small credit for either from those
whose safety they ensure, and who know little, and care less, about
matters so scantly relevant to their immediate comfort or concern.

Honor had elected to sit in front by the strapping Pathan driver;
while Parbutti, ayah, her flow of speech frozen at its source by the
near neighbourhood of a sword and loaded carbine, put as much space
between the orderly and her own small person as the narrow back-seat
of the tonga would permit.

The English girl's eyes had in them now less of dreaminess, and more
of thought. The abrupt change in her outlook brought Evelyn Desmond's
pretty, effective figure to the forefront of her mind. For ten
years,--the period of Honor's education in England,--the two girls had
lived and learned together as sisters; and, despite natures radically
opposed, a very real love had sprung up between them. They had not
met, however, since Evelyn Dacre's somewhat hasty marriage to Captain
Desmond, V.C., a brother officer of John Meredith; a soldier of no
little promise and distinction, and a true frontiersman, both by
heritage and inclination, since every Desmond who came to India went
straight to the Border as a matter of course. Honor knew the man by
hearsay only, but she knew every inch of her friend's character, and
the knowledge gave her food for much interested speculation. There are
few things more puzzling than the marriages of our friends, unless it
be our own.

But after the first stoppage to change horses, Honor flung meditation
to the winds, and turned her eyes and mind upon the life of the road.
For, as day took completer possession of the heavens, it became
evident that life, of a leisurely, intermittent sort, flourished even
upon this highway t