“Thus they welcome the Dep’ty Sahib,” remarked Sher Khan with grim irony.

It was true.  No mistaking the bulky figure on horseback, alone in the forefront of the throng, trying vainly to make himself heard.  Still he pressed forward, urging, commanding; missiles hurtling round him.  Luckily the aim was poor; and only one took effect.

A voice shouted, “You had better come back, sir.”

He halted.  There was a fierce forward rush.  Large groups of people sat down in flat defiance.

Again Rose broke out with her repressed intensity, “It’s madness!  Why on earth don’t they shoot?”

“The notion is—­to give the beggars every chance,” urged Roy.  “After all, they’ve been artificially worked up.  It’s the men behind—­pulling the strings—­who are to blame——­”

“I don’t care who’s to blame.  They’re as dangerous as wild beasts.”  She did not even look at him.  Her eyes, her mind were centred on that weird, unforgettable scene.  “And our people simply sitting there being pelted with bricks and stones ... the Pater ...  Lance....”

She drew in her lip.  Roy gave her a quick look.  That was the second time; and she did not even seem aware of it.

“Yes.  It’s a detestable position, but it’s not of their making,” he agreed; adding briskly:  “Come along, now, Rose.  It’s getting dark; and I ought to be in Cantonments.  There’ll be pickets all over the place—­after this.  I’ll see you safe to the Hall, then gallop on.”

Her lips twitched in a half-smile.  “Shirking congrats again?”

“Oh, drop it!  I’d clean forgotten.  I’ll conduct you right in—­and chance congrats.  But they’ll be too full of other things to-night.  Scared to death, some of them.”

“Mother, for one.  I never thought of her.  We must hurry.”

For new-made lovers, their tone and bearing was oddly detached, almost brusque.  They had gone some distance before they heard shots behind them.

“Thank goodness!  At last!  I hope it hurt some of them badly,” Rose broke out with unusual warmth.  She was rather unusual altogether this evening.  “Really, it would serve them right—­as Mr Hayes says—­if we did clear out, lock, stock, and barrel, and leave their precious country to be scrambled for by others of a very different jat[33] from the stupid, splendid British.  I’m glad I’m going, anyway.  I’ve never felt in sympathy.  And now, after all this ... and Amritsar ...  I simply couldn’t....”

She broke off in mid-career, flicked her pony’s flanks, and set off at a brisk canter.

Pause and action could have but one meaning.  “She’s realising,” thought Roy, cantering after, pain and anger mingled in his heart.  At such a moment, he admitted, her outburst was not unnatural.  But to him it was, none the less, intolerable.  The trouble was, he could say nothing, lest he say too much.

At the Lawrence Hall they found half a company of British soldiers on guard,—­producing, by their mere presence, that sense of security which radiates from the policeman and the soldier when the solid ground fails underfoot.