"To be struck by a woman!" Hunsa blared; "not a woman, but the spawn of
a she-leopard! why should not I beat your beautiful face into ugliness
with one of these sandals of a dead pig!"

He lifted her bodily, calling to the man upon the ground, the other
having mounted behind the bullocks. "Put back the leather wall of the
cart that I may hurl this outcast widow of a dead Hindu within."

Bootea clawed at his face; she kicked and fought; her voice screaming a
call to Ajeet.

There was a heavy rolling thump of hoofs upon the roadway, unheard of
Hunsa because of the vociferous struggle. Then from the shimmer of
moonlight thrust the white form of a big Turcoman horse that was thrown
almost to his haunches, his breast striking the back of the decoit.

The bullocks, nervous little brutes, startled by the huge white animal,
swerved, and before the man who sat a-straddle of the one shaft
gathered tight the cord to their nostrils, whisked the cart to the
roadside where it toppled over the bank for a fall of fifteen feet into
a ravine, carrying bullocks and driver with it.

The moonlight fell full upon the face of the horseman, its light making
still whiter the face of Captain Barlow.

And Bootea recognised him. It was the face that had been in her vision
night and day since the _nautch_.

"Save me, Sahib!" she cried; "these men are thieves; save me, Sahib!"