I speak seriously.

The place is in a ferment." "Oh, I think I'll be all right," said Ralston, and he rode at a trot down from Government House into the road which leads past the gaol and the Fort to the gate of Peshawur.

At the gate he reduced the trot to a walk, and so, with his two levies behind him, passed up along the streets like a man utterly undisturbed.

It was not bravado which had made him refuse an escort.

On the contrary, it was policy.