'Don't start, Mrs. Heron,' he whispered, 'or seem to see or hear me--I'm Billy Brierly, of your husband's company. He is well and unwounded, and counts every hour till he can rescue you.' Bill then drew back, for now Buktawur Sing came hastily and suspiciously forward. Mrs. Heron looked up. Astonishment, gratitude and hope were expressed in her eyes by tears, but not a ray of joy shone in them; and honest Bill Brierly felt his heart wrung as he looked on the poor lady, and saw now that the baby she held in her lap was dead! He mentioned this to Buktawur Sing. '_Kootch purwanni_' ('Never mind'), replied the latter, laughing to see her bending over it in the depth of her misery, and playing with his little white hands and flaxen curls. 'My little Basil--my little Basil!' she kept repeating; 'my little sunbeam gone! But safe now--safe from peril and suffering--safe with the Good Shepherd. And I am here!' As if to show his weariness or contempt of this, the ferocious Buktawur Sing snatched the child from her, and, with an imprecation, cast it into the alligator tank in the centre of the garden. She uttered a wild shriek and fell forward on her face senseless. Macgregor started to her assistance, but was driven back by the sharp bayonet of a Sepoy sentry; and Brierly, finding that he was powerless to give any aid whatever, quitted the place, and with a sob for vengeance in his throat, took the way back to Jubbulpore. Bill mercifully remained silent as to the fate of the child; but poor young Captain Heron was never weary of questioning him as to it and the unhappy mother. 'It is a sore trial to me, Brierly,' said he, in a broken voice. 'Yes, sir,' he replied; 'but He who sends the trial sends the strength to bear it too.' 'Bear it like a man,' urged Drayton. 'But I must also _feel_ it as a man,' replied poor Heron, unconsciously quoting the words of Macduff. And now came tidings that filled us all with grim and stern joy. The movable column of the Madras troops, under General Miller, was on the march from Dumoh to attack the rebels in Kuttingee, and drawing out from the Residency every man fit for service, Captain Heron set off to join him; and I can remember how, on the march, he kept near the section where Brierly was, for the latter had seen and spoken with the creature _he_ loved most on earth. A ghastly and haggard man Heron looked now--the shadow of his former self.