"Yes. And you?" said Malcolm, trying to conceal his amazement at this apparition. "I am Lieutenant Hodson of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers. I have ridden from Kurnaul, where the Commander-in-Chief is waiting until communication is opened with Meerut. Where is General Hewitt?" "I will take you to him! From Kurnaul, did you say? When did you start?" "About this hour yesterday." Malcolm knew then that this curt-spoken cavalier had ridden nearly a hundred miles through an enemy's country in twenty-four hours. "Is your horse equal to another hour's canter?" he inquired. "He ought to be. I took him from a bunniah when my own fell dead in a village about ten miles in the rear." Bidding a young bank manager take charge of the detachment, Frank led the newcomer rapidly to headquarters. Hodson asked a few questions and made his companion's blood boil by the unveiled contempt he displayed on hearing of the inaction at Meerut. "You want Nicholson here," said he, laughing with grim mirth. "By all the gods, he would horse-whip your general into the saddle." "Hewitt is an old man, and cautious, therefore," explained Frank, in loyal defense of his chief. "Perhaps he deems it right to await the orders you are now bringing." "An old man! You mean an old woman, perhaps? I come from one. I had to go on my knees almost before I could persuade Anson to let me start." "Well, you must admit that you have made a daring and lucky ride?" "Nonsense! Why is one a soldier! I would cross the infernal regions if the need arose. If I had been in Meerut on that Sunday evening, no general that ever lived could have kept me out of Delhi before daybreak. The way to stop this mutiny was to capture that doddering old king and hold him as a hostage, and twenty determined men could have done it easily in the confusion." That was William Hodson's way. Men who met him began by disliking his hectoring, supercilious bearing. They soon learnt to forget his gruffness and think only of his gallantry and good-comradeship. At any rate his stirring advice and the dispatches he brought roused the military authorities at Meerut into activity. Carrying with him a letter to the Commander-in-Chief he quitted Meerut again that night, and dismounted outside Anson's tent at Kurnaul at dawn on the second day!