kfast, Miss Hannay?"

"Quite ready, and for a walk as long as you like afterwards. I feel
quite another creature after my dip. That was one of the worst things
in the prison. We had scarcely water enough to drink, and none to wash
with, and, of course, no combs nor anything."

They sat down together and ate the cold food they had brought, while
Rabda and her father made their breakfast of rice.

"What has become of Mr. Wilson?" Isobel asked suddenly. "I wondered
about him as I was being carried along last night, but I was too tired
to talk afterwards."

"I hope he is either safe at Allahabad by this time, or is with the
troops marching up. The Zemindar's son, who came down with us as an
escort, and one of his men got safely to shore also, and they went on
with Wilson. When he found I was going to stay at Cawnpore to try and
rescue you, he pleaded very hard that I should keep him with me in order
that he might share in the attempt, but his ignorance of the language
might have been fatal, and his being with me would have greatly added
to the difficulty, so I was obliged to refuse him. It was only because
I told him that instead of adding to, he would lessen your chance of
escape, that he consented to go, for I am sure he would willingly have
laid down his life to save yours."

"I am very glad he is safe; he is very kind hearted and nice, Mr.
Bathurst, and a thoroughly natural, unaffected young fellow, very loyal
and stanch. I am quite sure he would have done anything he could, even
at the risk of his life."

"I like him very much, too, Miss Hannay. Before the siege I thought him
a careless, happy go lucky lad, but as I got to know him well, I found
he was much more than that, and he will make a good man and an excellent
officer one of these days if he is spared. He is thoroughly brave
without the slightest brag--an excellent specimen of the best class of
public school boy."

"And who are the troops coming up, Mr. Bathurst? How strong are they? I
have heard nothing about them."

"About twelve hundred white troops and four or five hundred Sikhs; at
least that is what the natives put them at."

"But surely they will never be able to fight their way to Cawnpore,
where there are the mutineers and Nana Sahib's troops and the Oude men
and the people of the town. Why, there must be ten to one against them."

"Not far short of that, I think, but I feel sure our men will do it.
They know of the treachery of the Nana, th