When he came to his senses he found that his arms were tied behind his back, that he had been carried under a big tree, and that a tall native, in the uniform of a subadar of the 2d Bengal Cavalry, was holding a lantern close to his face. "I am an officer of the 3d Cavalry," he said, trying to rise. "Why do you, a man in my own service, suffer me to be bound?" "You are no officer of mine, Feringhi," was the scornful reply. "You are safely trussed because we thought it better sport to dangle you from a bough than to stab you where you dropped. Quick, there, with that heel-rope, Abdul Huq. We have occupation. Let us hang this crow here to show other Nazarenes what they may expect. And we have no time to lose. The Nana may appear at any moment." CHAPTER V A WOMAN INTERVENES That ominous order filled Malcolm's soul with a fierce rage. He was not afraid of death. The wine of life ran too strongly in his veins that craven fear should so suddenly quell the excitement of the combat that had ended thus disastrously. But his complete helplessness--the fact that he was to be hanged like some wretched felon by men wearing the uniform of which he had been so proud--these things stirred him to the verge of frenzy. Oddly enough, in that moment of anguish he thought of Hodson, the man who rode alone from Kurnaul to Meerut. Why had Hodson succeeded? Would Hodson, knowing the exceeding importance of his mission, have turned to rescue a servant or raise a fallen horse? Would he not rather have dashed on like a thunderbolt, trusting to the superior speed of his charger to carry him clear of his assailants? And Nejdi! What had become of that trusted friend? Never before, Arab though he was, had he been guilty of a stumble. Perhaps he was shot, and sobbing out his gallant life on the road, almost at the foot of the tree which would be his master's gallows. A doomed man indulges in strange reveries. Malcolm was almost as greatly concerned with Nejdi's imagined fate as with his own desperate plight when the trooper who answered to the name of Abdul Huq brought the heel-rope that was to serve as a halter. The man was a Pathan, swarthy, lean, and sinewy, with the nose and eyes of a bird of prey. Though a hawk would show mercy to a fledgling sparrow sooner than this cut-throat to a captive, the robber instinct in him made him pause before he tied the fatal noose. "Have you gone through the Nazarene's pockets, sirdar?" he asked. "No," was the impatient answer. "Of what avail is it? These chota-sahibs[7] have no money. And Cawnpore awaits us." [Footnote 7: Junior Officers.] "Nevertheless, every rupee counts. And he may be carrying letters of value to the Maharajah. Once he is swinging up there he will be out of reach, and our caste does not permit us to defile our hands by touching a dead body."