h Naoghat, Nawab Sadiq Ali's port
on the Bari, and separate, they fastened up to the bank at a spot where
there was no village, but only a few poor huts, and where a patch of
marshy jungle held out the promise of wildfowl. Nisbet was busy with
his office Munshi, completing a catalogue of papers relating to the
affairs of Agpur, but Captain Cowper and Gerrard took their guns, and
set off along the bank in opposite directions. The sport was poor, and
after shooting a brace and a half of birds and walking a long distance,
Gerrard was warned by the gathering darkness to retrace his steps. A
white mass at the foot of a tree in one of the drier parts of the bog
attracted his attention in the distance, and on coming near enough to
see distinctly he found it was a respectably dressed elderly man
sitting there motionless. As Gerrard approached, the old man rose and
salaamed courteously, and disclosed himself as the scribe of the Rani
Gulab Kur.

"O master of many hands, how is it I find you here?" asked Gerrard in
surprise. "Are you waiting for a tiger to come and make a meal of you?"

"Nay, sahib, it is your honour I am awaiting. I bear a message from my
mistress for your ear alone."

"But is her Highness in this neighbourhood? I should wish to wait on
her and pay my respects."

"Her Highness is far away, sahib, but she does not forget the gratitude
due to your honour for your faithfulness to the dead. When we passed
through Ranjitgarh, it was told her that there was a project of
marriage between your honour and the daughter of the General Sahib with
the white hair, and she bade this slave note down the name, that she
might, if opportunity offered, do good to the General Sahib and his
family for your honour's sake. Hearing, then, that the Sahib who
commands the troops going to Agpur is sister's husband to the daughter
of the General Sahib, she judged it well to send a warning."

"Her Highness can hardly be so far away, after all, if she heard this
news in time to send you to meet me here, O venerable one," said
Gerrard.

"I speak but as I am bidden, sahib. Her Highness entreats you to warn
that Sahib and his friend to put no trust in the fair words of Sher
Singh--and this not so much because he is treacherous, though
treacherous he is to the very depths of hell, as because he is weak.
He sees it is not to his interest to provoke a war with the English at
this moment, but he is entirely dependent on his Sirdars-