decrepit son of a donkey, being without speed; and to punish him stroked
his neck gently: even this forced diversion bringing him closer to the
torturing sweetness of the girl.

But now he was aware of a throbbing on the night wind, and a faint shrill
note that lay deep in the shadows beyond. It was a curious rumbling
noise, as though ghosts of the hills on the right were playing bowls with
rounded rocks. And the shrilling skirl grew louder as if men marched
behind bagpipes.

The Gulab heard it, too, and her body stiffened, her head thrust from the
enveloping cloak, and her eyes showed like darkened sapphires.

"Carts carrying cotton perhaps," he said. But presently he knew that
small cotton carts but rattled, the volume of rumbling was as if an army
moved.

From up the road floated the staccato note of a staff beating its
surface, and the clanking tinkle of an iron ring against the wooden staff.

"A mail-carrier," Barlow said.

And then to the monotonous pat-pat-pat of trotting feet the mail-carrier
emerged from the grey wall of night.

"Here, you, what comes?" the Captain queried, checking the grey.

The postie stopped in terror at the English voice.

"Salaam, Bahadur Sahib; it is war."