want me to take you."

"Yonder, Sahib," and her eyes were turned toward the jewelled hill.

As they rose to the hilltop that was a slab of rock and sand carrying a
city, he asked: "Where shall I put you down that will be near your
place of rest, your friends?"

"Is there a memsahib in the home of the Sahib?" she asked.

"No, Bootea, not so lucky--nobody but servants."

"Then I will go to the bungalow of the Sahib."

"Confusion!" he exclaimed in moral trepidation.

Bootea's hand touched his arm, and she turned her face inward to hide
the hot flush that lay upon it. "No, Sahib, not because of Bootea; one
does not sleep in the lap of a god."

"All right, girl," he answered--"sorry."

As the grey plodded tiredly down the avenue of trees, a smooth road
bordered by a hedge of cactus and lanten, Barlow turned him to the
right up a drive of broken stone, and dropping to the ground at the
verandah of a white-waited bungalow, lifted the girl down, saying:
"Within it can be arranged for a rest place for you."

A _chowkidar_, lean, like a mummified mendicant, rose up from a
squeaking, roped _charpoy_ and salaamed.