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She's slippery, and quick, and like all Women, she's jealous!" The Rangar's eyes were on his, but King was not to be caught again. It is quite easy to think behind a fence, so to speak, if one gives attention to it. "She will be busy presently fooling those Afridis," he continued, waving his cigarette. "She has fooled them always, to the limit of their bally bent.
He knew as well as the Rangar that not many men would have kept their will so unfettered in that room as to be able to give independent orders. He recognized resignation, temporary at least, in the Rangar's attitude of leaning back again to watch from under lowered eyelids. It was like being watched by a cat.
He motioned with the cigarette toward a tent pitched quite a hundred yards away from the others and from the Rangar's own; with the Rangar's and the cluster of tents for the men it made an equilateral triangle, so that both he and the Rangar had privacy.
"You can get up the Khyber again and join your regiment." But by that time the Rangar's turban was on again and the tears were dry, and it was Partan Singh who threw most doubt on the sentry's tale about the golden hair. But, as the sentry said, no doubt Partan Singh was jealous.
It might be only jealousy, yet why should she be jealous? It might be fear yet why should she be afraid? It was the next remark of the Rangar's that set him entirely on his guard, and thenceforward whoever could have read his thoughts would have been more than human. Perhaps it is the most dominant characteristic of the British race that it will not defend itself until it must.
The carriage swayed at high speed round three sharp corners in succession before the Rangar spoke again. "She has often heard of you," he said then. That was not unlikely, but not necessarily true either. If it were true, it did not help to account for the puzzled look in the Rangar's eyes, that increased rather than diminished. "I've heard of her," said King. "Of course! Who has not?
And to have sat his horse there listening to the Rangar's whisperings and trying to see through shadows would have been to invite fear, of the sort that grows into panic. The Rangar followed him, close up, and both horse and mare sensed excitement. The mare's steel shoes sent up a shower of sparks, and King turned to rebuke the Rangar. Yet he did not speak.
The mare was not the only one worth watching; her rider shared the praise. There was something unexpected, although not in the least ungainly, about the Rangar's seat in the saddle that was not the ordinary, graceful native balance and yet was full of grace.
Then come and find me at the Star of India Hotel and help me to bathe and change my clothes." "To hear is to obey!" boomed Ismail, bowing; but his last glance was for Rewa Gunga, and be did not turn to go until he had met the Rangar's eyes.
"Are you afraid, King sahib?" said the Rangar Rewa Gunga's voice, and he took a step forward to be closer to his questioner. He found himself beside a rock, looking up at the Rangar's turban, that peered over the top of it. He could dimly make out the Rangar's dark eyes. "I would be afraid if I were you!"
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