o shame words, neither smiting with his foot as do
many officer-sahibs. It is well for us, who come strangers to a
country of murderers, to be of the household of such a Sahib. Nay,
then, child of my heart, I will cease from idle talk, ... it is an
order. Doth not my pearl and the light of my life await her chota
hazri?"

[5] Tray.

[6] Small breakfast.

And the old woman, whose garrulity was as dust in the balance when
weighed against twenty years of faithful service, shuffled out of the
room.

Half an hour later Honor was in the saddle--a gallant figure in
well-cut brown habit and white helmet, the sunlight finding out gleams
of bronze in her abundant hair, while all about her shone the
uncompromising blue and gold of a mid-March morning--fresh without
sharpness, and fragrant with the ethereal fragrance of dawn.

She followed the downward road, noting a landmark here and there for
guidance. Her delight was in the rhythm of movement; in the waiting
stillness of earth and sky; the momentous pause between all that has
been, and all that shall be, which gives a dramatic sense of
responsibility to the day's first hours.

Her eyes rejoiced in the least detail of form and light and colour; in
the signs of reviving life; the alert ubiquitous sentries, the sharp
alternations of sun and shadow on hills naked and unpromising as the
harsh face of poverty; hills that for all time have had but one gift
for the giving--"not peace, but a sword." From the cavalry Lines
behind her the trumpet call to "stables" set the blood stirring in her
veins, with that peculiar thrill which no other instrument can
produce. The very spirit of battle breathes in the sound.

An expectant interest glowed within her like a star. It was her great
good-fortune to be blessed with that poetic understanding which is
neither deceived by custom nor dulled by repetition, which sees all
things--even the most familiar--virginally fresh, as on the morning of
creation.

Her random wanderings brought her to a stretch of un-metalled road,
and at the road's edge, some few hundred yards away a man on a white
horse had drawn rein at sight of her. Instantly her thought alighted
on Evelyn's husband, but nearer view revealed a different type of
man--taller, and equally erect, yet lacking in the suggestion of force
and virility that emanated from Captain Desmond, even in repose. With
a rapidity born of much practice Honor took stock of him, from his
helmet to hi