“There will be a hundred rupees for you when I return, Rahim Khan. You had no message but this?” “One that the Memsahib’s ayah brought me, from her mistress’s own lips, sahib. It was this: Say to the Sahib, ‘Is it well with thee, as it is well with me?’” “Then say this to the ayah: Tell the Memsahib, ‘It is well with me, since it is well with thee.’ Stay,” he wrote hastily on the back of the doctor’s note two or three lines from what Penelope always told him was the only one of Tennyson’s poems he could appreciate:-- “‘Thy face across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands.’ ... ‘Like fire he meets the foe, And strikes him dead for thine and thee.’” “If you deliver that safely, it will mean another hundred rupees,” he said, giving the note to the _chaprasi_ with a smile. “You had better be off at once. It will be pretty hot here presently.” The man still lingered. “Is there going to be a battle, sahib?” he asked. “Doesn’t it look like it?” Bullets were flying round Colonel Keeling as he spoke, and he laughed again. “You are certain you are just going into battle, sahib?” “Certain; but I am not asking you to go into it with me. Get out of the way of the bullets as fast as you like.” Rahim Khan retired, but with dragging steps, and made his way slowly to Sir Dugald, who was in charge of the gun. To him he gave a second note, which he took from his turban. Sir Dugald tore it open, and for the moment his heart stood still, for he thought it referred to his own wife; but on turning it over he saw that it also was addressed to Colonel Keeling. “2 A.M. “Symptoms less satisfactory. If you could ride over, it might be as well. I don’t say it is necessary, but it would please Mrs Keeling. J. Tarleton.” “How dare you give me this, when it is meant for the Colonel Sahib?” demanded Sir Dugald. “I must have given the wrong _chit_, sahib,” and a third note was produced, this time addressed unmistakably to Sir Dugald. “Dear Haigh,--I am not at all satisfied about Mrs Keeling, and she knows it, but is most anxious that her husband’s mind should not be disturbed. I have had to give her my word of honour that if a battle is imminent he shall hear nothing until it is quite over, and the only way of managing this that I can see is to ask you to take charge of the second chit I have given Reheem Khaun, and hand it to Keeling at the proper time. Lady Haigh has been my right hand, and has stood the strain well. She is now resting for an hour or two. J. Tarleton.” “If the Karnal (Colonel) Sahib found that the dust of his feet had hidden the _chit_ from him, he would be very angry,” murmured the apologetic voice of Rahim Khan, “but seeing it is Haigh Sahib who does it, his wrath will be appeased.”