'No,' said Tom shortly.
'What are you doing, then?'
'I am travelling.'
Mrs. Doncaster laughed, then turned her pretty head round. 'By the by,' she said lightly, 'where is the unhappy person I nearly ran over? I ought to give him something to soothe his terrors.'
'Pray don't,' said Tom, who had recognised in the scowling passenger his guest of the previous evening. 'He is not a beggar.'
'Oh! isn't he? He looks very much like one, then, and they love money, all of them, the sordid wretches.'
'Here!' she threw out a rupee, 'take that! It's all I can spare, and it will be wealth to you.'
She spoke the last words in halting Hindustani.
The man whom she addressed—he had been gazing at her fixedly for the last few moments—spurned the coin with his foot, and it fell amongst a group of misshapen, half-naked beggars, who fell upon it fiercely, fighting one with the other for its possession. The noise drew the people together, upon which two or three of the native police ran into the midst of the mêlée, shouting and striking right and left. The whole city seemed to be in commotion.
'You will be surrounded,' said Tom hurriedly. 'Whip up your ponies and drive through them!'