estions about the women; but if there is a woman among
them, and she speaks, Rabda will answer her."

For hours they had heard dull sounds in the air, which Bathurst had
recognized at once as distant artillery, showing that the fight was
going on near Dong.

"The Sepoys are making a stout resistance, or the firing would not last
so long," he said to Rujub, as they walked through the wood towards the
road.

"They have two positions to defend, sahib. The Nana's men will fight
first at a strong village two miles beyond Dong; if they are beaten
there, they will fight again at the bridge I told you of."

"That would partly account for it; but the Sepoys must be fighting much
better than they did at Futtehpore, for there, as you said, the white
troops swept the Sepoys before them."

When they reached the edge of the wood Bathurst said, "I will see that
the road is clear before we go out. If anyone saw us issuing out of the
wood they might wonder what we had been after."

He went to the edge of the bushes and looked down the long straight
road. There was only a solitary figure in sight. It seemed to be an old
man walking lame with a stick. Bathurst was about to turn and tell the
others to come out, when he saw the man stop suddenly, turn round to
look back along the road, stand with his head bent as if listening, then
run across the road with much more agility than he had before seemed to
possess, and plunge in among the trees.

"Wait," he said to those behind him, "something is going on. A peasant I
saw in the road has suddenly dived into the wood as if he was afraid of
being pursued. Ah!" he exclaimed a minute later, "there is a party of
horsemen coming along at a gallop--get farther back into the wood."

Presently they heard the rapid trampling of horses, and looking through
the bushes they saw some twenty sowars of one of the native cavalry
regiments dash past.

Bathurst went to the edge of the wood again, and looked out. Then he
turned suddenly to Isobel.

"You remember those pictures on the smoke?" he said excitedly.

"No, I do not remember them," she said, in surprise. "I have often
wondered at it, but I have never been able to recollect what they were
since that evening. I have often thought they were just like dreams,
where one sees everything just as plainly as if it were a reality, and
then go out of your mind altogether as soon as you are awake."

"It has been just the same with me," replied Bathurst,