"One word more, cousin!" said Mahommed Gunga. "I was risaldar in
Cunnigan-bahadur's regiment of horse. There was more than mere
discipline between us. I ate his salt. Once--when he might have
saved himself the trouble without any daring to reproach him--he
risked his own life, and a troop, and his reputation to save a woman of
my family from capture, and something worse. There was never a Rajput
or any other native woman wronged while he was with us."

"Well?"

"I am no friend of Christian priests--of padres. But--"

"She who rode by just now? What, then?"

"I ride northward now, and then very likely South again. I can do
nothing in the matter, yet--were he in my shoes, and she a native
woman at the mercy of the troops--Cunnigan-bahadur would have
assigned a guard for her."

"Ho! So I am thy sepoy?" sneered Alwa, standing sideways--looking
sideways--and throwing out his chest. "I am to do thy bidding,
guarding stray padres" (he spoke the word as though it were a bad
taste he was spitting from his mouth), "and herding women without
purdah, while thou ridest on assignations Allah knows where? Since
when?"

"I have yet to refuse to guard thy back, or thy good name, Alwa!"
Mahommed Gunga eyed him straight, and thrust his hilt out. "The woman
is nothing to me--the padre-sahib less. It is because of the debt I
owe to Cunnigan that I ask this favor."