"The mem will be safe enough, Huzoor, when the child is gone, if the Huzoor will himself remain day and night to answer for the screened, sick woman within. His slave will be back by dawn; and if he smells trouble, the mem must be moved in a dhoolie to another house, the Rajpootni must go home, and I will be mother-in-law. I can play the part, Huzoor."
He could indeed! If Kate were to be safe anywhere, it would be with this old scoundrel with his thousand-faces, his undoubted gift for influencing the eyes of men. Three days of passing from one place to another, with him in some new character, and their traces must be lost. A good plan certainly!
"And there is no danger to-day?" he asked finally. Tiddu paused again, and his luminous eyes sought the sahib's. "Who can say that, Huzoor, for a mem, in this city. But I think none. We can do no more, danger or not. And I will watch. And see, here is the dream-giver. The Rajpootni will know the dose for the child."
The dream-giver! All that day the little screw of paper Tiddu had taken from his waistbelt lay in a fold of Jim Douglas' high-twined pugri, and its contents seemed to make him dull. Not that it mattered, since there was literally nothing to be done before dusk; for it would be cruel to tell Kate and keep her on tenterhooks all day to no purpose. But after a while she noticed his dullness, and came over to where he sat, his head on his hand, in his favorite attitude.
"I believe you are going to have fever and ague again," she said solicitously; "do take some aconite; if we could only get some quinine, that would end the tiresome thing at once."
He took some to please her, and because her suggestion gave him a reasonable excuse for being slack; but as he lounged about lazily, watching her playing with the boy, seeing her put him to sleep as the heat of the day came on, noting the cheerful content with which she adapted herself to a simplicity of life unknown to her three months before, the wonder of the circumstances which had led to it faded in the regret that it should be coming to an end. It had been three months of incredible peace and good-will; and to-day the peace and goodwill seemed to strike him all the more keenly because he knew that in an hour or so at most he must disturb it. It seemed hard.
But something else began the task for him. About sunset a sudden flash dazzled his eyes, and ere he grasped its vividness the walls were rocking silently, and a second after a roar as of a thousand thunder-claps deafened his ears. Kate had Sonny in her arms ere he could reach her, thrusting her away from the high parapet wall, which, in one already cracked corner, looked as if it must come down; which did indeed crumble outward, leaving a jagged gap halfway down its height, the debris falling with a rattle on the roof of the next house.
But ere the noise ended the vibration had passed, leaving him with relief on his face looking at a great mushroom of smoke and steam which had shot up into the sky.
"It's the powder factory!" he exclaimed, using Hindustani for Tara's benefit as well, since she had rushed in from the outer court at the first hint of danger to cling round his feet. "It is all over now, but it's lucky we were no nearer."
As he spoke he was wondering if this would make any difference in Tiddu's plans for the night, since the powder factory had stood equa-distant between them and the Delhi gate. He wondered also what had caused the explosion. Not a shell certainly. The factory had purposely been placed at the furthest point from the Ridge. However, there was a fine supply of powder gone, and, he hoped, a few mutineers. But Kate's mind had reverted to that other explosion which had been the prologue to the three months of peace and quiet. Was this one to be the epilogue? A vague dread, a sudden premonition made her ask quickly: