It was well on to noon when Afzul, after many hours of varied travelling by train, by canal, and finally on foot, found himself in Mahomed Lateef's last few acres of land. Of a surety they were not ones to be voluntarily chosen as a resting-place; bare of everything save the sparse stalks of last year's millet crop, showing all too clearly how scanty that crop had been; bare to the very walls of the half-ruined tower which stood supported on one side by the mud hovel occupied by the owner. A significant fact, that bareness, showing the lack of flocks and herds, the lack of everything that was not wanted for immediate use. And as he stood at the open door of the yard, it also showed clean-swept and garnished, dire sign of the poverty which allows nothing to go to waste. Yet it was not empty of all, for as the Pathan knocked again, a child, bubbling over with laughter, ran from a dark door into the sunlight. "Nâna, Nâna! [grand-dad] catch, catch!" it cried, and its little legs, unsteady though they were, kept their advantage on the long ones behind, long but old; crippled too with rheumatism and want of food to keep the stern old heart in fighting order; yet bubbling over with laughter, also, was the stern old face. "Catch thee, gazelle of the desert! fleetest son of Byramghor! Who could catch thee? Ah, God and his Prophet! thou hast not hurt thyself, little heart of my heart! What, no tears? Fâtma, Fâtma! the boy hath fallen and on my life he hath not shed a tear. _Ai_, the bold heart! _ai_, the brave man!" An old woman, bent almost double with age, crept from the door. She kissed the child's feet as it sat throned in its grandfather's arms. Her lips could reach no higher, but that was high enough for worship. "He never cries! None of them cried, and he is like them all," she crooned. "Dost have a mind, Khân _sahib_, of Futteh Mahomed falling?--the first, and I so frightened. There was a scratch a finger long on his knee and--" "Peace, Fâtma, and go back! There is a stranger at the door. Go back, I say!" It was a difficult task to draw the veil over those bent shoulders, but the old woman's wrinkled hands did their best as she scurried away obediently. "_Salaam Alaikoom!_" said the Pathan. "The mother may return. It is I, Afzul, brother of the breast." "Afzul!" The old martinet's face grew dark. "The only Afzul I knew was a runaway and a deserter. Art thou he?" "Ay! Khân _sahib_," replied the man calmly. "I ran away because I had sold my life to Marsden _sahib_, and I wanted to buy it back again. I have done it, and I am free." "Marsden _sahib!_ 'Tis long since I heard that name. Allah be with the brave! Pity there was none to stand between him and death as on that day when my son died." "Thou liest, Khân _sahib_. I stood in my brother's place. Marsden _sahib_ is not dead. I left him three days ago at Saudaghur."