fountains, and well-kept walks, with great clumps of bushes and flowering
shrubs well calculated for concealment. Into one of these they crept, and
were soon fast asleep.

It was late in the afternoon when they awoke, roused by the sound of
laughter, and of the chatter of many voices.

"Good gracious!" Ned exclaimed; "we have got into the women's garden."

In another minute a group of women came in sight. The principal figure was
a young woman of some twenty-two or twenty-three, and with a red wafer-
like patch on her forehead, very richly dressed.

"She is a Hindoo," Ned whispered; "what luck!"

There are indeed very few Hindoos in Oude, and the Mohammedan being the
dominant race, a Hindoo would naturally feel far more favorably inclined
toward a British fugitive than a Mohammedan would be likely to do, as the
triumph of the rebellion could to them simply mean a restoration, of
Mohammedan supremacy in place of the far more tolerant British rule.

Next to the ranee walked an old woman, who had probably been her nurse,
and was now her confidante and adviser. The rest were young women, clearly
dependants.

"And so, Ahrab, we must give up our garden, and go into Cawnpore; and in
such weather too!"

"It must be so indeed," the elder woman said. "These Mohammedans doubt us,
and so insist on your highness showing your devotion to the cause by