Gerrard had no very high hopes in this direction when he appeared at the grand review arranged in honour of Queen Victoria's birthday, and attended by all the Nawab's subsidiary chiefs and their followers as well as by his own army, but his eye was quickly caught by a large body of mounted men whose ordered movements contrasted strongly with the free and easy methods of the Habshiabadis. There was something familiar in the aspect of the leader, and when he rode past the saluting-point Gerrard recognised him at once. It was Rukn-ud-din, and of the two companies which he led one was composed of Rajputs, and the other of the faithful remnant of the Agpur bodyguard. Sadiq Ali smiled to behold his ally's surprise, but declined mysteriously to say what Rukn-ud-din and his men were doing on his parade-ground. Jirad Sahib would doubtless wish to make inquiries for himself, he said, and Komadan Rukn-ud-din had already asked leave to pay his respects to him. In the interval between the review and the banquet which was to wind up the day, therefore, a gorgeous band of horsemen thronged the approach to Gerrard's quarters, and Rukn-ud-din presented his officers, the chief of whom was the Rajput Amrodh Chand, who was a cousin of the Rani's. Gerrard touched the sword-hilts they held forth, entertained them with coffee and conversation of a strictly non-committal character, and then withdrew from the verandah into his office for a few moments' confidential talk with their leader. "You are surely not one of the Nawab's Komadans, Rukn-ud-din?" he asked him eagerly. "Nay, sahib. I still eat the salt of the widow of my master." "Then it is the Rani Sahiba who is entertaining these troops of yours? But is she not far away?" "So far away as to be between this place and the river that parts it from Agpur, sahib." "This is very serious." It was quite certain that Mr James Antony would not approve of the Rani's taking up her residence so close to her former capital, when she was supposed to be at Benares. "You know that I must report it to the Resident Sahib at Ranjitgarh?" "Your honour will do as it is decreed you should do," said the Mohammedan tranquilly. "But what is her Highness's object?" "To avenge the blood of her house, sahib. She devotes herself wholly to the practice of austerities, after the manner of the idolaters. The women say that to behold her is to behold the corpse of one that has died in famine-time." "You cannot mean that she is wholly destitute? Yet what is she living upon? Her allowance has not been paid to her, because she has not subscribed to the conditions upon which it was granted."