"I'll send the tonga on ahead," he declared, "and we'll just have that jolly old farewell ride together, girl—I'd love it."
Now she turned back to him and her face was placid, soft, content, as though Mona Lisa had stepped out from the painted canvas, and, now embodied, was there listening to the sigh of the night-wind through the feathered sal forest.
With ejaculations of "Bap, bap, bap! Shabaz!" and queer gurgling clucking of the throat, and a sonorous rumble from the wide, low wheels, the driver drove the tonga on into the moonlight. Barlow had saddled his horse and thrown his blanket loosely behind the saddle. The air was chilling, but his sheepskin coat would turn its cold breath; the blanket was for Bootea.
As he had done once before, his feet in stirrups, he reached down a hand and swung the girl up in front of him. Then he enveloped her in the blanket as she nestled against his chest, arms about his waist. Her warm body was like a draught of wine and he muttered, "My God! I shouldn't have done this!" But he knew that he would have had that ride if devils had jeered at him from the jungle that lined the road.
As the horse swung along in leisured walking stride, the girl seemed to have gone to sleep; her cheek lay against Barlow's shoulder, and he could feel the pulsating throb of her heart. Once a sigh came from her lips, but it was like a breath of deep content. Barlow felt that he must talk to the girl; his senses were rampant; he was sitting like the lotus-eaters drinking in a deadly intoxication.
But it was Bootea who broke the silence as though she, too, felt herself slipping. She took from beneath her vestment a little bag of silk and taking from it a ruby she put it in Barlow's hand, saying: "Here is the 'Lamp of Akbar;' it protects and gives power."
"Where did you get this magnificent ruby, girl—it is of great value?"
Barlow queried in amazement.
"Do you remember, Sahib, when Bootea asked for the turban of Hunsa, the time it was stripped from his head, and the paper of message found hidden in it?"
"Yes, you said you would take it back to the Bagrees to show them that
Hunsa was dead."
He could hear the Gulab chuckle. "That was but the deceit of a woman, Sahib; the simple things that a woman says to deceive a clever man. I knew that Hunsa had the ruby sewn in a corner of the turban, and when I had taken the stone I burned the turban in the fire, for it was like Hunsa—very dirty."