Ee could be a lady-in-waiting. As a respectable str

T afforded them privacy. In negotiating for the
loan of a blacksmith Hunsa had impressed upon a sergeant his sincerity
by
the gift of two rupees;
and two rupees more to the blacksmith
made it certain that the heating of the cannon ball would not make the
test unfair to Hunsa. A peacock perched high in the feathery top of a
giant _sal_ tree was crying "miaow, miaow!" to the dipping sun when,
in the centre of the Bagree

camp the blacksmith, sitting on his haunches
in front of a charcoal fire in which nested the iron cannon ball,
fanned the flames with his pair of goat-skin hand-bellows. Lots were
cast as to which of the two would take the ordeal first, and it fell
to

Ajeet. First seven paces were marked off, and Ajeet was told that he
must not run, but take the seven steps as in a walk, carrying the hot
iron on a pipal leaf
on his palm. "This food of the cannon is now hot," the blacksmith
declared, dropping his bellows