“Oh, Frank!” she sighed, holding out both her hands. “Oh, Frank, I am so frightened. We had a dreadful time at the bungalow, and these men look so fierce and cruel! Have you really brought help?”
“Yes,” he said confidently. “You need have no further anxiety. Please get into your carriage.”
Mr. Mayne said something, but Malcolm never knew what it was, for Winifred fainted, and would have fallen had he not caught her.
“This Feringhi has a loud voice,” a man near him growled. “He talks of cavalry. Where are they?”
“The Meerut road is empty,” commented another.
“We have the Begum’s order,” said the first speaker, more loudly. “Let us obey, or it may be an evil thing for us.”
“One of the daughters of Bahadur Shah is here,” murmured Mayne rapidly. “She says we are to be taken to Delhi, and slain if we resist. Where are your men? My poor niece! To think that I should have brought her from England for this!”
Malcolm, still holding Winifred’s unconscious form clasped to his breast, laughed loudly.
“Mayne-sahib tells me that you have all gone mad,” he shouted in the vernacular. “Have you no ears? Did you not hear the British artillery firing on the rebels a little time since? Ere day breaks the road to Delhi will be held by the white troops. What foolish talk is this of taking Mayne-sahib thither as a prisoner?”
The door of the bedizened traveling-coach was flung open, and the Mohammedan lady who had befriended Frank when he fell into the moat appeared. She alighted, and her aggressive servants drew away somewhat.