They ran and stumbled down the hill, Sir Dugald assisting any one of the three who happened to be nearest, and a little way back on the road they had come, found Miani and four other horses waiting in a hollow, secured to a lance driven into the ground.
“But where are the rest?” cried Lady Haigh. “The men can’t have walked from Alibad here.”
“There’s a horse for each man,” was the grim reply. “Keeling and I, his two orderlies, and Murtiza Khan—there’s our rescue party.”
“It’s perfect madness!” she cried piteously, collapsing on a heap of stones. “There was no need to risk your lives in this way.”
“All that could be spared. This is a little jaunt undertaken when we are supposed to be asleep. No one knows about it.”
“It’s just the sort of mad thing Major Keeling would do, but you—oh, Dugald! if anything happens to you I shall never forgive myself,” and Lady Haigh sat on her stone-heap and wept ignominiously.
“Good heavens, Elma! you’ll call together all the enemies in the neighbourhood if you make that noise. I’m all right at present. Why don’t you weep over the Chief? He’s in danger, if you like.”
“Yes, and why aren’t you with him?” she demanded, with what might have appeared a certain measure of inconsistency.
“Orders,” he replied tersely. “I have to see you home. Hope we shall be able to collar your ponies. Where did you manage to pick up an ayah? Not one of your captors’ people, is she?”
“No, she must go back with us. She belongs to Sheikhgarh. Oh, Dugald——”