CHAPTER XI.
A WINTER MARCH It was only too true! The escort which was to see them on the road was already occupying the garden, the horses champing their bits and fretting because the long branches of the roses at which they snatched held nothing but thorns.
Prince Akbar, indeed, was too much interested in watching them and wondering if they were very hungry to take much heed of anything else, but Princess Bakshee Bani Begum, who was a very practical little person, at once began to pack up her favourite doll.
"You had better choose out some toy, Mirak," said she, "or you will be wanting to play with mine, and I won't let you." But Mirak was busy with the horses.
"I sha'n't want anything but my sword," he replied valiantly.

"I'm a big boy now, and I'm going to play with real things." Then he turned to one of the troopers with a quaint air of authority.

"Your horse is too thin.
When I am King I shall see that my men give their horses enough to eat." Foster-father, who overheard the child, paused in the hasty arrangements he was making to look at the little Heir-to-Empire and put up a prayer that the fates might let him be King; but the future looked black indeed.

The road to Kabul must still be blocked with snow, even if more did not fall by the way.

A likely happening, with the bitter north wind and the dull lowering sky.