Once--when he might have saved himself the trouble without any daring to reproach him--he risked his own life, and a troop, and his reputation to save a woman of my family from capture, and something worse.

There was never a Rajput or any other native woman wronged while he was with us." "Well ?" "I am no friend of Christian priests--of padres.

But--" "She who rode by just now?
What, then ?" "I ride northward now, and then very likely South again.

I can do nothing in the matter, yet--were he in my shoes, and she a native woman at the mercy of the troops--Cunnigan-bahadur would have assigned a guard for her." "Ho! So I am thy sepoy ?" sneered Alwa, standing sideways--looking sideways--and throwing out his chest.

"I am to do thy bidding, guarding stray padres" (he spoke the word as though it were a bad taste he was spitting from his mouth), "and herding women without purdah, while thou ridest on assignations Allah knows where?
Since when ?" "I have yet to refuse to guard thy back, or thy good name, Alwa!" Mahommed Gunga eyed him straight, and thrust his hilt out.