"The Foreigners! Thieves! The accursed Foreigners. To the rescue, brave Rani; oh! to the rescue, good comrades," the voice of Bipin saluted their astonished ears. Then came screams and chattering in an unknown tongue, with a fiercer renewal of the unseen combat.
The Rani had been awakened with the rest. She was about to order some of the men to climb up into the tree and discover the nature of the disturbance, when, with a crashing of branches, a struggling black mass fell into their midst.
The troopers started back and then returned to separate the combatants that still writhed and fought upon the ground, when the form of Bipin struggled to his feet. He grasped a hairy baboon by the neck, and held him a captive before the Rani.
"Ah, what a ruffian," he panted, "to attempt to strangle me in my sleep. Without doubt he must embody the spirit of some wicked enemy."
In spite of her overshadowing misfortune, the Rani could not restrain a laugh at the humor of the situation.
"Thou art a brave fellow," she exclaimed, "and hast earned thy right to fight with a lance instead of a pen. Some day, perchance, thou wilt command a troop."
"Truly," reflected Bipin, "whether I like it or no, Fate will have it that I am to be mixed up continually in some accursed broil. If not with men, alas! it seems with the animals. Such is the inscrutable will of God."
The troopers' voices echoed the Rani's sally with laughter. They drove the baboon from the camp, peace was restored, slumber once more descended upon their heads. Before daybreak the party were speeding in a south-westerly direction toward a rendezvous of the Native chiefs at Gopalpur.