And if thou thinkest the price be high, in steer and gear and

stack,

"Give me my father's mare again, and I'll fight my own way

back!"

Kamal has gripped him by the hand and set him upon his feet.

"No talk shall be of dogs," said he, "when wolf and grey wolf meet.

"May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath; "What dam of lances brought thee forth to jest at the dawn with Death?"

Lightly answered the Colonel's son: "I hold by the blood of my clan:

"Take up the mare for my father's gift-by God, she has carried a man!"

The red mare ran to the Colonel's son, and nuzzled against his breast;

"We be two strong men," said Kamal then, "but she loveth the younger best.

"So she shall go with a lifter's dower, my turquoise-studded

rein,

bir "My 'broidered saddle and saddle-cloth, and silver stirrups
Ytwain.”

The Colonel's son a pistol drew, and held it muzzle-end,
"Ye have taken the one from a foe," said he; "will ye take
the mate from a friend?"

"A gift for a gift," said Kamal straight; "a limb for the risk
of a limb.

"Thy father has sent his son to me, I'll send my son to him!" ther With that he whistled his only son, that dropped from a

chren

mountain-crest

He trod the ling like a buck in spring, and he looked like a

lance in rest.

"Now here is thy master," Kamal said, "who leads a troop of

the Guides,

"And thou must ride at his left side/as shield/on

'as shield on shoulder/

"Till Death or Leut loose the tie at camp and board and bed, "Thy life is his-thy fate it is to guard him with thy head. "So, thou must eat the White Queen's meat, and all her foes are thine,

"And thou must harry thy father's hold for the peace of the Border-line.

"And thou must make a trooper tough and hack thy way to power

"Belike they will raise thee to Ressaldar when I am hanged in Peshawur."

They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault,

They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt:

They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod,

On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God.

The Colonel's son he rides the mare and Kamal's boy the dun, And two have come back to Fort Bukloh where there went

forth but one.

And when they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear

There was not a man but carried his feud with the blood of the mountaineer.

"Ha' done! ha' done!" said the Colonel's son. "Put up the steel at your sides!

"Last night ye had struck at a Border thief-to-night 't is a man of the Guides!"

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

THE LAST SUTTEE

1889

Not many years ago a King died in one of the Rajpoot States. His wives, disregarding the orders of the English against Suttee, would have broken out of the palace and burned themselves with the corpse had not the gates been barred. But one of them, disguised as the King's favourite dancing-girl, passed through the line of guards and reached the pyre. There, her courage failing, she prayed her cousin, a baron of the King's court, to kill her. This he did, not knowing who she was.

UDAI CHAND lay sick to death
In his hold by Gungra hill.

All night we heard the death-gongs ring,
For the soul of the dying Rajpoot King,
All night beat up from the women's wing
A cry that we could not still.

All night the barons came and went,
The Lords of the Outer Guard.
All night the cressets glimmered pale
On Ulwar sabre and Tonk jezail,
Mewar headstall and Marwar mail,
That clinked in the palace yard.

In the Golden Room on the palace roof
All night he fought for air:

And there were sobbings behind the screen,
Rustle and whisper of women unseen,
And the hungry eyes of the Boondi Queen
On the death she might not share.

He passed at dawn—the death-fire leaped
From ridge to river-head,

From the Malwa plains to the Abu scars:
And wail upon wail went up to the stars
Behind the grim zenana-bars,

When they knew that the King was dead.

The dumb priest knelt to tie his mouth
And robe him for the pyre.

The Boondi Queen beneath us cried:
"See, now, that we die as our mothers died
"In the bridal-bed by our master's side!
"Out, women!-to the fire!"

We drove the great gates home apace—
White hands were on the sill-

But ere the rush of the unseen feet
Had reached the turn to the open street,
The bars shot down, the guard-drum beat-
We held the dovecot still.

A face looked down in the gathering day, And laughing spoke from the wall: "Ohé, they mourn here: let me by— ‘Azizun, the Lucknow nautch-girl, I! "When the house is rotten, the rats must fly, "And I seek another thrall.

"For I ruled the King as ne'er did Queen,— "To-night the Queens rule me! "Guard them safely, but let me go, "Or ever they pay the debt they owe "In scourge and torture!" She leaped below,

And the grim guard watched her flee.

They knew that the King had spent his soul
On a North-bred dancing-girl:

That he prayed to a flat-nosed Lucknow god,
And kissed the ground where her feet had trod,
And doomed to death at her drunken nod,
And swore by her lightest curl.

We bore the King to his fathers' place,

Where the tombs of the Sun-born stand:

Where the grey apes swing, and the peacocks preen On fretted pillar and jewelled screen,

And the wild boar couch in the house of the Queen On the drift of the desert sand.

The herald read his titles forth
We set the logs aglow:

"Friend of the English, free from fear,
"Baron of Luni to Jeysulmeer,

"Lord of the Desert of Bikaneer, "King of the Jungle,-go!"

All night the red flame stabbed the sky
With wavering wind-tossed spears:
And out of a shattered temple crept
A woman who veiled her head and wept,
And called on the King-but the great King slept,
And turned not for her tears.

One watched, a bow-shot from the blaze,

The silent streets between,

Who had stood by the King in sport and fray,

To blade in ambush or boar at bay,

And he was a baron old and grey,

And kin to the Boondi Queen.