'Yes, yes; but—oh! Hoosanee, my servant, my friend,' cried Tom, breaking down now at last, and for a few moments giving way to his passionate grief. 'It is too terrible,' he went on, when the strangled sobs and the shivering of his limbs would let him speak. 'God knows I am glad to have rescued them; but I never thought—I never imagined—that you, knowing my heart as you do, would bring back the others and not her. How could it have been?'

Then Hoosanee told rapidly the story that we know.

'It was herself, master,' he cried. 'As your Honour lives, she was safe. They would not have found her, for the night was as dark as the jaws of hell, and to save the others I could have made a story, and the ladies would have helped me. We would have said that she was dead. I would have taken them on to my father's village and returned, when all was still, for her and the child. We should all—all have come in; but she is a daughter of Allah—too fine—too noble even to be paralysed by fear. When she heard the Soubahdar use threatening words she came out and they carried her away. I ask my master what could I do?'

'Nothing. You have done your best, my poor Hoosanee. And now it rests with me.'

'Not so, master. You cannot go out as I have done. You know neither the people nor their ways. If you can think who has taken her, tell me, and I will at least find out if she is alive and what treatment she is receiving. Master'—piteously—'do not deny me! It is not for your Excellency's sake alone, although to serve you is dear to me. It is for her. Ah! master, if you had seen her through all those nights. They were impatient; they would blame me sometimes, and say that I had not done my best; and sometimes, master, knowing a little English as I do, I could hear that they were angry with one another and the child. But she was always the same—always a kind look and a gentle word. "My good Hoosanee, my kind Hoosanee"—master, I hear her voice in my sleep, and I spring up and say to myself that if I do not go to her, if I do not try to save her, I am black of heart and degraded. Let me go then, I beseech you!'

'Hoosanee, it is neither fair nor right. Twice—three times—you have been in peril for me. You will become known. They will call you a spy—a spy of the Feringhees—and then what treatment can you hope for?'

'I can die, master,' said Hoosanee, nobly. 'That has been the fate of better men than I am in these last few days. But I do not think I shall die. I have that within me which says that I shall live to see these cruel days at an end. And does my master think that I will show the same face as I have done to these men? He must know little of the resources of the Indian. I will change myself so that my own father would not know me. Did my master know Subdul Khan when he went into the midst of the enemy's camp?'

'So you have heard of our adventure?' said Tom. Full of anguish as he was, he smiled faintly at the memory of that strange evening. 'Subdul was certainly sublime,' he went on. 'But you have only just come in, and he has left. How did you hear?'

'My master's friends are everywhere,' replied Hoosanee tranquilly. 'In all this region there is scarcely a village where they are not to be found. Byrajee Pirtha Raj, our revered ruler, was well known and warmly loved. Is not my master his true son?'

'If this is so,' said Tom, his voice trembling, 'if I have many friends amongst this people, is not that the more reason that I should go forth? I must, Hoosanee, I will. I tell you that if I stay I shall go mad.'