“Of course not,” said Georgia. “Wait a moment, please; I have forgotten something,” and she ran back into the drawing-room. Mabel knew what it was she had suddenly remembered.
“I hope she won’t be long,” said Fitz anxiously. “We’ve been here a quarter of an hour already.”
Only a quarter of an hour! To Mabel it seemed hours since she had been awakened by those voices on the verandah. She looked out beyond the line of troopers sitting motionless on their horses, and noticed, without perceiving the significance of the fact, that there were two or three of their number acting as scouts farther off in the moonlight.
“I daren’t lose any more time,” Fitz went on, fidgeting up and down the steps. “I can’t think how it is they have left us so long.”
Ismail Bakhsh, stowing Mabel’s dressing-bag under the seat of the dog-cart, looked round. “Sahib, he rides to-night. They will not cross the border until he has passed.”
“Then whoever or whatever he may be, he has probably saved all our lives,” said Fitz, as Georgia came out of the house. While he was helping her into the dog-cart, Mabel caught once more the sound of the tramp of the galloping horse, which the old trooper’s quick ear had perceived some minutes before. The sowars straightened themselves suddenly in their saddles, and the horses pricked their ears in the direction of the noise.
“Old boy seems somewhat agitated to-night,” muttered Winlock to Fitz, as the invisible rider pulled up abruptly, then galloped on again.
“There’s enough to make him so,” returned Fitz, who was helping to hoist the last terrified native woman, with her burden of two children and several brass pots, into the last cart. “All right now?” he demanded, looking down the row of vehicles. “We had better be off, then.”
Was it fancy, or did Mabel see the sparks struck from the stone on which the unseen horse stumbled as the sound came nearer? She could have screamed for sheer terror; but Rahah, who was her companion on the back seat of the dog-cart, laughed aloud as she wrapped the end of her chadar round the great white Persian cat she held in her arms.
“What is there to fear, Miss Sahib? No man has ever stood against Sinjāj Kīlin, and he is close at hand. The rule of the Sarkar will continue.”