“Look here, Miss North; a bright idea! Will you let me try to break her of this frivolous habit of hers? I’m generally considered rather good with horses, and there’s nothing I should like better than to train her properly for you.” “Oh, could you really? Of course I have still got Majnûn, but he is so uninteresting to ride compared with her. But won’t it give you a great deal of trouble?” “Trouble? Not a bit! I wish it would. Then you might set it down as some sort of atonement for my carelessness in nearly getting you killed to-day. But anyhow, I’ll do my best with her, honour bright! If the Major will give her stable-room to-night, I’ll have a box cleared out for her at my place. My stables are crammed with ridiculous old rubbish that has come down to me from General Keeling’s time, and my horses camp in the middle of it. By-the-bye, do you know I can’t feel as I did about Sheikh here”--he looked askance at his own handsome pony--“since Bahram Khan won the Cup on him? It seems as if he must be an awful traitor to sell his master in that style, you see. I distinctly saw the fellow whisper in his ear before he mounted him, and he was like a lamb at once, instead of flinging his heels all over the shop, as he had been doing the moment before. Now suppose he’s been hypnotised once and for all, what’s to happen if he chooses to trot off and attach himself to Bahram Khan any day we may chance to meet him? I shall look a nice sort of fool.” “Have Bahram Khan arrested for horse-stealing, I should think,” said Mabel, with a rather forced laugh. “But how is it that that dreadful man is here at all? I hope you had a word or two with the Hindu who told us he was away?” “Ah, but he had us there, unfortunately. Narayan Singh told us that his master had started for Nalapur, but we didn’t ask whether he had come back, so he wasn’t obliged to say anything, and he didn’t. Bahram Khan told me himself how it happens that he’s here. It seems that when he got to Nalapur his uncle intimated that he could run the funeral without his assistance, and more than hinted, as I understand, that he had had too much to do with it already. Hence he thinks it well to hide his cousinly grief in his ancestral fortress, until he can get the Commissioner to tackle Ashraf Ali for him again, I suppose.” “More trouble!” sighed Mabel. “I’m afraid so. The Kumpsioner Sahib is scarcely likely to take such a slap in the face quietly. His _protégé_ has been snubbed, and I rather think he will want to know the reason why.” Mabel sighed again, and they spoke little after that, except to encourage the horses as they toiled through the loose sand. Arrived at the gate of the compound, she asked Fitz to come in and have some lunch, but he laughed.