It would have been well for India if Nejdi's hoofs had then and there struck the breath out of that ascetic frame. Of all the firebrands raised by the Mutiny, the Moulvie of Fyzabad was the fiercest and most dangerous. Early in the year he was imprisoned for preaching sedition. Unhappily he was liberated too soon, and, his fanaticism only inflamed the more by punishment, he went to the Punjab and sowed disaffection far and wide by his burning zeal for the spread of Islam. By chance he returned to Fyzabad before the outbreak at Meerut. The feeble loyalty of the native regiments at Lucknow sufficed to keep all the borderland of Nepaul quiet for nearly two months. But the reports brought by his disciples warned the moulvie that the true believer's day of triumph was approaching. Moreover, the Begum of Oudh, one of three women who were worth as many army corps to the mutineers, was waiting for him at Rai Bareilly, a placid eddy in the backwash of the torrents sweeping through Upper India, and Ahmed Ullah had left Fyzabad on the evening of the 29th to keep his tryst. It was, therefore, a lively brood of scorpions that Malcolm proposed to disturb when he dismounted from a wretched tat he had purchased at his first halt, and fed and watered Nejdi again, just as a glimmer of dawn appeared in the east. According to his calculations he was about a mile from Rai Bareilly. The hour was the quietest and coolest of the hot Indian night. Some pattering drops of rain and the appearance of heavy clouds in the southwest gave premonitions of a fresh outburst of the monsoon. He was glad of it. Rain would freshen himself and his horse. It made the ground soft and would retard his speed once he quitted the high road, but these drawbacks were more than balanced by the absence of the terrific heat of the previous day. He unstrapped his cloak and flung it loosely over his shoulders. Then he waited, until the growing light brought forth the untiring tillers of the fields, and he was able to glean some sort of information as to the position of affairs in the town. If the place were occupied by a prowling gang of rebels he might secure a guide by payment and avoid its narrow streets altogether. At any rate, it would be a foolish thing to dash through blindly and trust to luck. The issues at stake were too important for that sort of imprudent valor. His object was to reach Allahabad that night--not to hew his way through opposing hordes and risk being cut down in the process. The lowing of cattle and the soft stumbling tread of many unshod feet told him that some one was approaching. A herd of buffaloes loomed out of the half light. Their driver, an old man, was quite willing to talk.