The fine dust deadened the drumming of the hoofs, and until half the intervening distance had been covered the cloud in front moved forward, and rose and fell with regular cadence. Then the procession halted; they had been seen or heard. Hira Singh laughed, and, lowering his lance-point, tightened the grip of his knees on the saddle. "Only a rebel escaping with his goods and family," said he; "but we may as well slay them, sahib, for without doubt they deserve it." "Not so, Hira Singh. Let us speak them fair. We cannot tell who they are." There were two curtained _gharris_ or carts, each drawn by two soft-eyed bullocks. Protecting these rode three horsemen, who now stood awaiting the onslaught, two with levelled muskets, the third with drawn sword. It was evident that the gharris contained their womenfolk, as for nothing less would they have stood their ground against fifty. Crack! Crack! At two hundred yards' distance they had fired into the cloud of dust, and a bullet struck Ted just below the heart. He doubled forward with the pain, nearly losing his grip, and the bullet quietly dropped upon the saddle. He glanced at his tunic; there was not a tear, and he slowly realized that he was still alive. The bullet was spent, and it had struck him with no more force than a thrown stone of the same size. He was hurt, but not injured. Hira Singh's lance was couched again, and the horses were at the gallop. The shots had roused the fierce Sikh blood, and it would have gone hard with the horsemen had not Ted sufficiently recovered his wits, and, spurring his Arab to the front, had called upon the ressaidar to pull up his horse to a walk. He was puzzled that the three should have stood their ground so valiantly when escape would have been easy, and he did not mean to suffer friends to be slain. Besides, the carts probably contained women, who would not be safe from the fury of his wild levies once they had tasted blood. He caught Hira Singh's bridle and shouted the command to halt, and the troop pulled up about thirty paces from the daring wayfarers. Ted rode out in front of his men. "Who are you?" he demanded. Instantly the strangers lowered their loaded muskets, and the handsome old man in the centre took his sword by the blade and held the hilt towards the Englishman. "Allah give you victory, sahib!" said the old man, stroking his gray beard with nervous fingers. "I thought ye were budmashes who had cut us off. I did not see that thou wast a Feringhi until this moment." "We hope that no man was hurt by our shots," added the youngest of the three, a slight but muscular and well-made man, twenty years of age perhaps. There was something in his appearance that took Ted's fancy--a dignified bearing and demeanour. "But what do ye here?" asked our lieutenant, "and why should ye fire at strangers?"