for the Gulab, Kumari or otherwise, is a princess, such as men fight
and die for."

There was a little silence, Barlow carrying on in his mind this, the
main interest, so far as he was concerned, Bootea; as a woman appealing
to the senses or to the subtlest mentality she was the sweetest woman
he had ever known.

There was a flicker of grim humour in Kassim's dark eyes: "Captain
Sahib," he said, "that evil-faced Bagree has a curious deep cunning, I
believe. I'll swear now by the hilt of my _tulwar_ that he made up the
whole story for the purpose of having audience with me, and in his
heart was a favour desired, for, as I was leaving, he asked that I
would have his turban given back to him to wear on his going; he
pleaded for it. Of course, Sahib, a turban is an affair of caste, and
I suppose he was feeling a disgrace in going forth without it. It
appears that Gulab had taken it as an evidence that he had been killed,
but when I sent a man for it she told him that the cloth was possessed
of vermin and she had burned it."

"But still, Chief, though Hunsa has an animal cunning, yet he could not
make up such a story--he has heard it somewhere."

Barlow felt his heart warm toward the grizzled old warrior as he,
dropping the nebulous matter of Kumari, said: "And to think, Captain
Sahib, that but for the Gulab we would have slain you as the murderer
of Amir Khan. As a Patan, even if I had wished it, I could not have
fended the _tulwars_ from your body. And you were a brave man, such as
a Pindari loves; rather than announce thyself as an Englay--the paper
gone and thy mission failed--thou wouldst have stood up to death like a