"You d----d fool!" said the boy. "Couldn't you hear it was a woman? I'll--I'll have you shot. Oh, hang it all! Drag the creature away, someone. Get out, do!"
For Hâfzan, as he stood stanching the blood from the slight wound, had fallen at his feet and was kissing them frantically.
But even that indignity was forgotten as the stained handkerchief answered the flutter of something which at that moment caught the breeze above him.
It was the English flag.
The men, forgetting everything else, cheered themselves hoarse--cheered again when an orderly rode past waving a slip of paper sent back to the General with the laconic report:
"Blown open the gates! Got the Palace!"
But Hâfzan, her veil up to prevent mistakes, limped over to where the Moulvie lay, turned him gently on his back, straightened his limbs and closed his eyes. She would have liked to tell the truth to someone, but there was no one to listen. So she left him there before the tribunal to which he had appealed.
[CHAPTER VI.]
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS.
So the strain of months was over on the Ridge. Delhi was taken; the Queen's health was being drunk night after night in the Palace of the Moghuls. But there was one person to whom the passing days brought a growing anxiety. This was Kate Erlton; for there were no tidings of Jim Douglas. None.