King looked over his shoulder to make sure that Ismail was bringing the little leather bag along.
“So have I,” he said quietly.
“I have horses,” said Rewa Gunga, “and mules and--”
“How did she travel up the Khyber?” King asked him, and the Rangar spared him a curious sidewise glance.
“On a horse. You should have seen the horse!”
“What escort had she?”
“She?”
Rewa Gunga chuckled and then suddenly grew serious.
“The 'Hills' are her escort, King sahib. She is mistress in the 'Hills.' There isn't a murdering ruffian who would not lie down and let her walk on him! She rode away alone on a thoroughbred mare and she jolly well left me the mare's double on which to follow her. Come and look.”
Not far from where the tents had been pitched in a cluster a string of horses winnied at a picket rope. King saw the two good horses ready for himself, and ten mules beside them that would have done credit to any outfit. But at the end of the line, pawing at the trampled grass, was a black mare that made his eyes open wide. Once in a hundred years or so a viceroy's cup, or a Derby is won by an animal that can stand and look and move as that mare did.