As day broke we searched the surrounding crops, and found the villagers and some soldiers hidden amongst them.

They one and all denied that there was the slightest truth in the story, and as it appeared a waste of time to further prosecute the fruitless search, we were on the point of starting to rejoin our camp, when there was a cry from our troopers of '_Mem sahib hai!_' (Here is the lady), and presently an excessively dusky girl about sixteen years of age appeared, clad in Native dress.

We had some difficulty in getting the young woman to tell us what had happened; but on assuring her that no harm should be done to those with whom she was living, she told us that she was the daughter of a clerk in the Commissioner's office at Sitapur; that all her family had been killed when the rising took place at that station, and that she had been carried off by a sowar to his home.

We asked her if she wished to come away with us.

After some hesitation she declined, saying the sowar had married her (after the Mahomedan fashion), and was kind to her, and she had no friends and relations to go to.