Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/221

Rh Noon's eye beheld that shame of flight, the shadows fell, we fled

Where steadfast as the wheeling kite he followed in our train;

The black wolf warred where we had warred, the jackal mocked our dead,

And terror born of twilight tide made mad the labouring brain.

I gasped:—"A kingdom waits my lord; her love is but her own.

"A day shall mar, a day shall cure for her, but what for thee?

"Cut loose the girl: he follows fast. Cut loose and ride alone!"

Then Scindia 'twixt his blistered lips:—"My Queen's Queen shall she be!

"Of all who eat my bread last night 'twas she alone that came

"To seek her love between the spears and find her frown therein!