The moment my hands touched the reins, Holmes kicked the other horse into a run, Nesbit behind him on the wide haunches with the fallen guard’s rifle. I threw myself into the saddle, drove my heels hard into the horse’s sides, and flew on their heels across the grassland in the direction of the Khanpur border.

But the guards were superbly trained, or the maharaja cautious. Less than twenty strides into our gallop, the first shot came. I felt as much as heard the bullet cut through the air, saw a puff of dirt rise up on the other side of Holmes and Nesbit, and looked back over my right shoulder to see the second guard as he rounded the southern tree line. The crack of the gun reached us, and Nesbit, ahead and to my left, twisted around, trying to bring his stolen rifle up as he clung to the bare horse with his legs. Unfortunately, I was directly between the two weapons.

I wrenched the reins to the left so I was heading back towards the trees, desperate to clear Nesbit’s line of fire. After a quarter of a mile, I twitched them back to the right, and was in a line with the other horse when out of the corner of my eye I saw a white flash, beating its way flat-out around the northern end of the trees.

Four horses, five riders, their trajectories coming together at a point where an arm of forest stretched out into the grassland of the terai. The maharaja’s Arab was ideally suited for this race, deft on its feet over the rough ground and filled with stamina, whereas stamina was just what the doubly-laden gelding in front of me was running short of. My stolen bay might, possibly, have outrun the smaller Arab, but the chestnut under Holmes and Nesbit was already showing the first signs of foundering. From the south, the guard’s sturdy bay would reach the point last of all, but it would all be over before then.