fire and rape and plunder for a month till nothing remains. Better
to send a man back to take the message and get a reward. I say
that this child is their God, and that they will spare none of us,
nor our women, if we harm him."

It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom of the Colonel, who made
the diversion, and an angry and heated discussion followed. Wee
Willie Winkie, standing over Miss Allardyce, waited the upshot.
Surely his "wegiment," his own "wegiment," would not desert him if
they knew of his extremity.

The riderless pony brought the news to the 195th, though there had
been consternation in the Colonel's household for an hour before.
The little beast came in through the parade-ground in front of the
main barracks, where the men were settling down to play Spoil-five
till the afternoon. Devlin, the Color-Sergeant of E Company,
glanced at the empty saddle and tumbled through the barrack-rooms,
kicking up each Room Corporal as he passed. "Up, ye beggars!
There's something happened to the Colonel's son," he shouted.

"He couldn't fall off! S'help me, 'e COULDN'T fall off," blubbered
a drummer-boy. "Go an' hunt acrost the river. He's over there if
he's anywhere, an' maybe those Pathans have got 'im. For the love
o' Gawd don't look for 'im in the nullahs! Let's go over the
river."

"There's sense in Mott yet," said Devlin. "E Company, double out
to the river--sharp!"

So E Company, in its shirt-sleeves mainly, doubled for the dear