Barlow stared angrily into the big eyes that were lifted to his, that
though they lingered in soft loving upon his face, told him that she
would not tell, that she would die first; even as he would have given
his life if he had been captured by tribesmen and asked to betray his
fellow men as the price of liberty.

He threw himself back wearily in the chair. "Why tell me this now,--to
mock me, to exult?" he said, reproach in his voice.

"But it is the message, Sahib, that is more than the life of a _sepoy_,
is it not?"

Again he sat up: "Why do you say this--do you know where it is?"

She drew from beneath her bodice the sandal soles, saying: "These are
from the feet of the messenger who is dead. The one the Sahib beat
over the head with his pistol dropped them,--and he was carrying them
for a purpose. The Sahib knows, perhaps, the secret way of this land."

In the girl's hand was clasped the knife from her girdle, and she
tendered it, hilt first: "Bootea knows not if they are of value, the
leather soles, but if the Sahib would open them, then if there are eyes
that watch the curtains are drawn."

Barlow revivified, stimulated by hope, seized the knife and ran its
sharp point around the stitching of the soles. Between the double
leather of one lay a thin, strong parchment-like paper.

He gave a cry of exultation as, unfolding it, he saw the seal of his