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for the Meerut road was normally a busy one and carried the main traffic from Rohilkund and Oude to Delhi. But Sita was unaware of this, and the silence encouraged her, though she was not anxious to follow too closely on the heels of those wild-eyed horsemen, and it seemed wiser to wait awhile. There was still a little food left, but they had finished the milk on the previous night and were both becoming increasingly thirsty.
    ‘Wait here,’ she told Ash. ‘I will go to the river to fetch water, and I shall not be long. Do not move from here, my heart. Stay still and you will be safe.’
    Ash had obeyed her, for he had caught the infection of her panic and for the first time in his life had been frightened. Though he, like Sita, could not have told what he was afraid of.
    It had been a long wait, for Sita made a detour and reached the river bank some way above the spot where the road ran on to the bridge of boats, which would have been the shortest way to the water. From here she could see across the sand bars and the wandering channels of the Jumna to the Calcutta Gate and the long line of the wall that stretched away past the Arsenal to the Water Bastion; and also hear, more clearly now, the noise of the city, which sounded from that distance like the hum of an overturned hive of angry bees, magnified a thousand times.
    Mixed with that sound were the sharper ones of shots, now a lone one, now a staccato crackle of firing; and the sky above the roof tops was alive with birds – hawks, cawing flocks of crows, and startled pigeons, wheeling and swooping and rising sharply again as though disturbed by something in the streets below. Yes, there was something gravely wrong with Delhi that morning, and it would be better to keep away and not attempt to enter the city until she had some knowledge of what was happening there. It was a pity that there was so little food left, but there would be enough for the child. And at least they would have water.
    Sita filled her brass
lotah
in the shallows and stole back to the safety of the elephant grass by the Meerut road, keeping as far as possible to the sparse shelter of
kikar
trees, rocks and clumps of pampas in order to avoid being seen. They would remain here until the evening, she decided, and then cross the bridge after dark, and by-passing the city, make straight for the cantonments. It would be a long walk for Ash-Baba, but if he rested all day… She trod out a more comfortable space for him in the heart of the grass patch, and though it had been dusty, airless and intolerably hot, and Ash, having forgotten his fear, had become bored and restless, the heat and the enforced idleness had eventually made him drowsy, and shortly after midday he had fallen asleep.
    Sita too had dozed fitfully, soothed by the slow creak of bullock-drawn country carts plodding along the dusty road and the occasional jingle of a passing
ekka
. * Both sounds seemed to betoken the resumption of normal traffic on the Meerut road, so perhaps the danger – if there had been danger – had passed, and what she had witnessed had been no more than messengers hastening to Bahadur Shah, the Mogul, with news of some great event that had aroused the city to excitement and celebration; the news, perhaps, of a victory won by the Company's Bengal Army on some faraway battle field; or the birth of a son to some fellow monarch – perchance to the
Padishah
Victoria in
Belait
(England) ?
    These and other comforting conjectures served to blunt the sharp edge of panic, and she could no longer hear the tumult of the city, for though the faint current of air that blew off the wet sand and the winding reaches of the Jumna River was not strong enough to raise the dust that lay thick on the highroad, it was still sufficient to stir the tops of the elephant grass and fill her ears with a soft, murmurous rustling. ‘We shall leave when the child awakes,’ thought Sita. But even as she thought it the illusion of peace was