compound, then make for that copse of trees, and try and find your way to
Meerut. I trust I may be with you, or that I may join you on the road. But
in any case, it will relieve my anxiety greatly to know that your course
is laid down. If I had to return here to look for you, I should bring my
pursuers after me, and your chance of escape would be gone--for I rely
upon you all to follow my instructions to the letter."

"Yes, indeed, papa," was the unanimous answer of the young Warreners, who
were deeply affected at the solemn manner in which their father spoke of
the situation.

"I have a brace of revolvers upstairs," he said, "and will give one to
each of you boys. Carry them always, but put them on under your coats, so
that they may not be noticed; it would be as well for you to practice
yourselves in their use; but when you do so, always go some distance from
the station, so that the sound will not be heard."

"Can you give Rose and me a pistol each, too, papa?" Kate said quietly.

Major Warrener kissed his daughter and niece tenderly.

"I have a pair of small double-barreled pistols; you shall each have one,"
he answered with a deep sigh.

That afternoon the young Warreners and their cousin went out for a walk,
and, fixing a piece of paper against a tree, practiced pistol shooting for
an hour. Any passer-by ignorant of the circumstances would have wondered
at the countenances of these young people, engaged, apparently, in the
amusement of pistol practice. There was no smile on them, no merry laugh
when the ball went wide of the mark, no triumphant shout at a successful