"I hope so," was the reply, but the phrase set him a-thinking. Within that shining palace most probably was a woman to whom he owed his life. In another palace, many a hundred miles away, was another woman for whom he would willingly risk that life if only he could save her from the fate that the private of the 61st was gloating over in anticipation. What a mad jumble of opposites was this useless and horrible war! At any rate why could not women be kept out of it and let men adjust their quarrel with the stern arbitrament of sword and gun! Then he recalled Chumru's words anent the Princess Roshinara, and the fancy seized him that if he were destined to enter Delhi with the besiegers he would surely strive to repay the service she had rendered Winifred and Mayne and himself at Bithoor. That is the way man proposes and that is why the gods smile when they dispose of man's affairs. CHAPTER XV AT THE KING'S COURT Without guns to breach the walls, even the heroic Nicholson was powerless against a strongly fortified city. The siege train was toiling slowly across the Punjab, but the setting in of the monsoon rendered the transit of heavy cannon a laborious task. On the 24th of August an officer rode in from the town of Baghput, twenty-five miles to the north, to report that the train was parked there for the night. "What sort of escort accompanies it?" asked Nicholson, when the news reached him. "Almost exclusively natives and few in numbers at that," he was told. An hour later a native spy from Delhi came to the camp. "The mutineers are mustering for a big march," he said. "They are providing guns, litters, and commissariat camels, and the story goes that they mean to fight the Feringhis at Bahadurgarh." The place named was a large village, ten miles northwest of the ridge, and Nicholson guessed instantly that the sepoys had planned the daring coup of cutting off the siege train. With him, to hear was to act. He formed a column of two thousand men and a battery of field artillery and left the camp at dawn on the 25th. If a forced march could accomplish it, he meant not only to frustrate the enemy's design but inflict a serious defeat on them. Malcolm went with him and never had he taken part in a harder day's work. The road was a bullock track, a swamp of mud amid the larger swamp of the ploughed land and jungle. Horses and men floundered through it as best they might. The guns often sank almost to the trunnions; many a time the infantry had to help elephants and bullocks to haul them out. In seven hours the column only marched nine miles, and then came the disheartening news that the spy's information was wrong. The rebels had, indeed, sent out a strong force, but they were at Nujufgarh, miles away to the right.