grand-nephew, with a dozen troopers or so as following, it might have been bearable; but, as Walidâd's extraction barred all claim to noble descent, enlistment meant something very different. The old lady, accustomed to obedience all round, when the dreadful defiance had occurred, ten years before, had called the stars to witness that it was all--that everything was--Pidar Narâyan's fault! And then she had fallen a-whimpering, knowing right well that but for the latter's intercession, she herself would have had no "_pinson_"; since Government bars those who can be proved to be personally implicated in evil doings. And now, as she sat looking at her grandson, the same conflicting estimates made her irritable. Why had Pidar Narâyan ever put his finger in the Eshwara pie? Yet, without him, where would they all have been? Still, he need not have taught the lad to fence, and so turned him into a mean, common soldier. Now, whether this was true, whether his skill with the foils had turned Roshan's thoughts towards a fighting life, or whether it was simply the result of natural aptitudes that way, the choice of professions had been wise. His Colonel,--of the old school though he was,--had admitted, when pressed, that the young Mahomedan, _given practice_, might be able to lead the regiment as well as a fresh-joined English subaltern. The newer school, again, playing the _Krieg spiel_ against him at Simla, and finding itself in grips with a genuine gift for tactics, had shaken its head and confessed the hardship of such a talent being barred from finding its proper level. Still it was impossible to legislate for exceptions without upsetting the every-day army apple-cart. Roshan himself, being sensible--above all, being of a nation which accepts limitations as a law of God--was, as a rule, satisfied with his future _risaldar_ majorship, and, if he was lucky, _Aide-de-Camp to the Queen_, and a few other titles tacked on to it. Like all natives of India he lived largely on the approbation of his immediate superiors, and this he had without stint; besides, his whole line of thought had become too military for any subversion of rule and discipline to seem desirable. Yet the curb made itself felt sometimes; never more keenly than at his grandmother's scornful look, when, in reply to her catechising, he named his income. "Only that! _Bâh!_ Tis the pay of a coolie!" "'Tis the pay of my rank, anyhow," he replied sulkily, "and I cannot expect promotion yet; the rules--" She waggled her be-veiled, be-jewelled head cunningly. "Rules! What have rules to do with favour, either for men or women? Lo! thy grand-uncle, the Nawab, gave twice that to a coachman who had one eye black and the other blue because he fancied him! So, if thou art in favour, as thou sayest, ask for more. The _Huzoors_ will give it, sooner than lose thee."