Part 9 (2/2)

”They have killed Ajeet,” Hunsa declared; ”but also they are dead, and I have the leader's leather sandals for a purpose. The shot has roused the village, and even now our people are preparing for flight. Get you into the cart that I may take you to safety.” He took the ruby from his turban, saying: ”And here is the most beautiful ruby in Hind; the fat pig of a Dewan wants it, but I have taken it for you.”

But Bootea pushed his hand away: ”I take no present from you, Hunsa.”

Hunsa put the jewel back in his turban and commanded the two men, who stood waiting, ”Make fast the bullocks to the cart quickly lest we be captured, because other soldiers are coming behind.”

The two Bagrees turned to where the slim pink-and-grey coated trotting bullocks were tethered by their short horns to a tree and leading them to the cart made fast the bamboo yoke across their necks.

”Get into the cart, Bootea,” Hunsa commanded, for the girl had not moved.

”I will not!” she declared. ”I'm going back to Ajeet; he is not dead--it is a trick.”

”He _is_ dead,” Hunsa snarled, seizing her by arm.

The Gulab screamed words of denunciation. ”Take your hands off me, son of a pig, accursed man of low caste! Ajeet will kill you for this, dog!”

At this the wife of Sookdee fled, racing back toward the camp. One of the men darted forward to follow, but Hunsa stayed him, saying, ”Let her go--it is better; I war not upon Sookdee.”

He had the Gulab now in the grasp of both his huge paws, and holding her tight, said rapidly: ”Be still you she-devil, accursed fool! You are going to a palace to be a queen. The son of the Peshwa desires you. True, I, also, have desire, but fear not for, by Bhowanee! it is a life of glory, of jewels and rich attire that I take you to; so get into the cart.”

But Bootea wrenched free an arm and struck Hunsa full upon his ugly face, screaming her rebellion.

”To be struck by a woman!” Hunsa blared; ”not a woman, but the sp.a.w.n of a she-leopard! why should not I beat your beautiful face into ugliness with one of these sandals of a dead pig!”

He lifted her bodily, calling to the man upon the ground, the other having mounted behind the bullocks. ”Put back the leather wall of the cart that I may hurl this outcast widow of a dead Hindu within.”

Bootea clawed at his face; she kicked and fought; her voice screaming a call to Ajeet.

There was a heavy rolling thump of hoofs upon the roadway, unheard of Hunsa because of the vociferous struggle. Then from the s.h.i.+mmer of moonlight thrust the white form of a big Turcoman horse that was thrown almost to his haunches, his breast striking the back of the decoit.

The bullocks, nervous little brutes, startled by the huge white animal, swerved, and before the man who sat a-straddle of the one shaft gathered tight the cord to their nostrils, whisked the cart to the roadside where it toppled over the bank for a fall of fifteen feet into a ravine, carrying bullocks and driver with it.

The moonlight fell full upon the face of the horseman, its light making still whiter the face of Captain Barlow.

And Bootea recognised him. It was the face that had been in her vision night and day since the _nautch_.

”Save me, Sahib!” she cried; ”these men are thieves; save me, Sahib!”

The hunting crop in Barlow's hand crashed upon the thick head of Hunsa in ready answer to the appeal. And as the sahib threw himself from the saddle the jamadar, with a snarl like a wounded tiger, dropped the girl and, whirling, grappled with the Englishman.

Barlow was strong; few men in the force, certainly none in the officers' mess, could put him on his back; and he was lithe, supple as a leopard; and in combat cool, his mind working like the mind of a chess player: but he realised that the arms about him were the arms of a gorilla, the chest against which he was being crushed was the chest of a trained wrestler; a smaller man would have heard his bones cracking in that clutch.

He raised a knee and drove it into the groin of the jamadar; then in the slight slackening of the holding arms as the Bagree shrank from the blow, he struck at the bearded chin; it was the clean, trained short-arm jab of a boxer.

But even as the gorilla wavered staggeringly under the blow, a soft something slipped about Barlow's throat and tightened like the coils of a python. And behind something was pressing him to his death. The other Bagree springing to the a.s.sistance of Hunsa had looped his _roomal_ about the Sahib's throat with the art of a thug.

Barlow's senses were going; his brain swam; in his fancy he had been shot from a cliff and was hurtling through s.p.a.ce in which there was no air--his lungs had closed; in his brain a hammer was beating him into unconsciousness.

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