The shay arrived on time to the second. It was the only closed carriage the regiment owned—a heavy C-springed landau thing, taken over from the previous mess. The colonel peered through outer darkness at the box seat, but the driver did not look toward him; all he could see was that there was only one man on the box.

"Where to?" asked Warrington.

"The club."

Warrington jumped in after him, and the driver sent his pair straining at the traces as if they had a gun behind them. Three hundred yards beyond the barrack wall Colonel Kirby knelt on the front seat and poked the driver from behind.

"Oh! You?" he remarked, as he recognized a native risaldar of D Squadron. Until the novelty wears off it would disconcert any man to discover suddenly that his coachman is a troop commander.

"D'you know a person named Yasmini?" he asked.

"Who does not, sahib?"

"Drive us to her house—in a hurry!"

The immediate answer was a plunge as the whip descended on both horses and the heavy carriage began to sway like a boat in a beam-sea swell. They tore through streets that were living streams of human beings—streams that split apart to let them through and closed like water again behind them. With his spurred heels on the front seat, Warrington hummed softly to himself as ever, happy, so long as there were only action.

"I've heard India spoken of as dead," he remarked after a while. "Gad! Look at that color against the darkness!"

"If Ranjoor Singh is dead, I'm going to know it!" said Colonel Kirby. "And if he isn't dead, I'm going to dig him out or know the reason why. There's been foul play, Warrington. I happen to know that Ranjoor Singh has been suspected in a certain quarter. Incidentally, I staked my own reputation on his honesty this afternoon. And besides, we can't afford to lose a wing commander such as he is on the eve of the real thing. We've got to find him!"

Once or twice as they flashed by a street-lamp they were recognized as British officers, and then natives, who would have gone to some trouble to seem insolent a few hours before, stopped to half-turn and salaam to them.

"Wonder how they'd like German rule for a change?" mused Warrington.

"India doesn't often wear her heart on her sleeve," said Kirby.

"It's there to-night!" said Warrington. "India's awake, if this is Delhi and not a nightmare! India's makin' love to the British soldier- man!"

They tore through a city that is polychromatic in the daytime and by night a dream of phantom silhouettes. But, that night, day and night were blended in one uproar, and the Chandni Chowk was at floodtide, wave on wave of excited human beings pouring into it from a hundred bystreets and none pouring out again.

So the risaldar drove across the Chandni Chowk, fighting his way with the aid of whip and voice, and made a wide circuit through dark lanes where groups of people argued at the corners, and sometimes a would-be holy man preached that the end of the world had come.

* * * * *

They reached Yasmini's from the corner farthest from the Chandni Chowk, and sprang out of the carriage the instant that the risaldar drew rein.

"Wait within call!" commanded Kirby, and the risaldar raised his whip.

Then, with his adjutant at his heels, Colonel Kirby dived through the gloomy opening in a wall that Yasmini devised to look as little like an approach to her—or heaven—as possible.

"Wonder if he's brought us to the right place?" he whispered, sniffing into the moldy darkness.

"Dunno, sir. There're stairs to your left."

They caught the sound of faint flute music on an upper floor, and as Kirby felt cautiously for his footing on the lower step Warrington began to whistle softly to himself. Next to war, an adventure of this kind was the nearest he could imagine to sheer bliss, and it was all he could do to contrive to keep from singing.

The heavy teak stairs creaked under their joint weight, and though their eyes could not penetrate the upper blackness, yet they both suspected rather than sensed some one waiting for them at the top,

Kirby's right hand instinctively sought a pocket in his cloak. Warrington felt for his pistol, too.

For thirty or more seconds—say, three steps—they went up like conspirators, trying to move silently and holding to the rail; then the absurdity of the situation appealed to both, and without a word said each stepped forward like a man, so that the staircase resounded.

They stumbled on a little landing after twenty steps, and wasted about a minute knocking on what felt like the panels of a door; but then Warrington peered into the gloom higher up and saw dim light.

So they essayed a second flight of stairs, in single file as before, and presently—when they had climbed some ten steps and had turned to negotiate ten more that ascended at an angle—a curtain moved a little, and the dim light changed to a sudden shaft that nearly blinded them.

Then a heavy black curtain was drawn back on rings, and a hundred lights, reflected in a dozen mirrors, twinkled and flashed before them so that they could not tell which way to turn. Somewhere there was a glassbead curtain, but there were so many mirrors that they could not tell which was the curtain and which were its reflections.

The curtains all parted, and from the midst of each there stepped a little nutbrown maid, who seemed too lovely to be Indian. Even then they could not tell which was maid and which reflections until she spoke.

"Will the sahibs give their names?" she asked in Hindustani; and her voice suggested flutes.

She smiled, and her teeth were whiter than a pipe-clayed sword-belt; there is nothing on earth whiter than her teeth were.

"Colonel Kirby and Captain Warrington" said Kirby.

"Will the sahibs state their business?"

"No!"

"Then whom do the sahibs seek to see?"

"Does a lady live here named Yasmini?"

"Surely, sahib."

"I wish to talk with her."

A dozen little maids seemed to step back through a dozen swaying curtains, and a second later for the life of them they could neither of them tell through which it was that the music came and the smell of musk and sandal-smoke. But she came back and beckoned to them, laughing over her shoulder and holding the middle curtain apart for them to follow.

So, one after the other, they followed her, Kirby—as became a seriously-minded colonel on the eve of war—feeling out of place and foolish, but Warrington, possessed by such a feeling of curiosity as he had never before tasted.

The heat inside the room they entered was oppressive, in spite of a great open window at which sat a dozen maids, and of the punkahs swinging overhead, so Kirby undid his cloak and walked revealed, a soldier in mess dress.

"Look at innocence aware of itself!" whispered Warrington.

"Shut up!" commanded Kirby, striding forward.

A dozen—perhaps more—hillmen, of three or four different tribes, had sat back against one wall and looked suspicious when they entered, but at sight of Kirby's military clothes they had looked alarmed and moved as if a whip had been cracked not far away. The Northern adventurer does not care to be seen at his amusements, nor does he love to be looked in on by men in uniform.

But the little maid beckoned them on, still showing her teeth and tripping in front of them as if a gust of wind were blowing her. Her motion was that of a dance reduced to a walk for the sake of decorum.

Through another glass-bead curtain at the farther end of the long room she led them to a second room, all hung about with silks and furnished with deep-cushioned divans. There were mirrors in this room, too, so that Kirby laughed aloud to see how incongruous and completely out of place he and his adjutant locked. His gruff laugh came so suddenly that the maid nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Will the sahibs be seated?" she asked almost in a whisper, as if they had half-frightened the life out of her, and then she ran out of the room so quickly that they were only aware of the jingling curtain.

So they sat down, Kirby trying the cushions with his foot until he found some firm enough to allow him to retain his dignity. Cavalry dress-trousers are not built to sprawl on cushions in; a man should sit reasonably upright or else stand.

"I'll say this for myself," he grunted, as he settled into place, "it's the first time in my life I was ever inside a native woman's premises."

Warrington did not commit himself to speech.

They sat for five minutes looking about them, Warrington beginning to be bored, but Kirby honestly interested by the splendor of the hangings and the general atmosphere of Eastern luxury. It was Warrington who grew uneasy first.

"Feel as if any one was lookin' at you, sir?" he asked out of one side of his mouth. And then Kirby noticed it, and felt his collar awkwardly.

In all the world there is nothing so well calculated to sap a man's prepossession as the feeling that he is secretly observed. There was no sound, no movement, no sign of any one, and Warrington looked in the mirrors keenly while he pretended to be interested in his little mustache. Yet the sweat began to run down Colonel Kirby's temples, and he felt at his collar again to make sure that it stood upright.

"Yes," he said, "I do. I'm going to get up and walk about."

He paced the length of the long room twice, turning quickly at each end, but detecting no movement and no eyes. Then he sat down again beside Warrington; but the feeling still persisted.

Suddenly a low laugh startled them, a delicious laugh, full of camaraderie, that would have disarmed the suspicion of a wolf. Just as unexpectedly a curtain less than a yard away from Kirby moved, and she stood before them—Yasmini. She could only be Yasmini. Besides, she had jasmine flowers worked into her hair.

Like a pair of bull buffaloes startled from their sleep, the colonel and his adjutant shot to their feet and faced her, and to their credit let it be recorded that they dropped their eyes, both of them. They felt like bounders. They hated themselves for breaking in on such loveliness.

"Will the sahibs not be seated again?" she asked them in a velvet voice; and, sweating in the neck, they each sat down.

Now that the first feeling of impropriety had given way to curiosity, neither had eyes for anything but her. Neither had ever seen anything so beautiful, so fascinating, so impudently lovely. She was laughing at them; each knew it, yet neither felt resentful.

"Well?" she asked in Hindustani, and arched her eyebrows questioning.

And Colonel Kirby stammered because she had made him think of his mother, and the tender prelude to a curtain lecture. Yet this woman was not old enough to have been his wife!

"I-I-I came to ask about a friend of mine—by name Risaldar—Major Ranjoor Singh. I understand you know him?"

She nodded, and Kirby fought with a desire to let his mind wander. The subtle hypnotism that the East knows how to stage and use was creeping over him. She stood so close! She seemed so like the warm soft spirit of all womanhood that only the measured rising and falling of her bosom, under the gauzy drapery, made her seem human and not a spirit. Subtly, ever so cunningly, she had contrived to touch a chord in Colonel Kirby's heart that he did not know lived any more. Warrington was speechless; he could not have trusted himself to speak. She had touched another chord in him.

"He came here more than once, or so I've been given to understand," said Kirby, and his own voice startled him, for it seemed harsh. "He is said to have listened to a lecture here—I was told the lecture was delivered by a German—and there was some sort of a fracas outside in the street afterward. I'm told some of his squadron were near, and they thrashed a man. Now, Ranjoor Singh is missing."

"So?" said Yasmini, arching her whole lithe body into a setting for the prettiest yawn that Kirby had ever seen. "So the Jat is missing! Yes, he came here, sahib. He was never invited, but he came. He sat here saying nothing until it suited him to sit where another man was; then he struck the other man—so, with the sole of his foot—and took the man's place, and heard what he came to hear. Later, outside in the street, he and his men set on the Afridi whom he had struck with his foot and beat him."

"I have heard a variation of that," said Kirby.

"Have you ever heard, sahib, that he who strikes the wearer of a Northern knife is like to feel that knife? So Ranjoor Singh, the Jat, is missing?"

"Yes," said Kirby, frowning, for he was not pleased to hear Ranjoor Singh spoken of slightingly. A Jat may be a good enough man, and usually is, but a Sikh is a Jat who is better.

"And if he is missing, what has that to do with me?" asked Yasmini.

"I have heard—men say—"

"Yes?" she said, laughing, for it amused her almost more than any other thing to see dignity disarmed.

"Men say that you know most of what goes on in Delhi—"

"And—?" She was Impudence arrayed in gossamer.

Colonel Kirby pulled himself together; after all, it was not for long that anything less than an army corps could make him feel unequal to a situation. This woman was the loveliest thing he had ever seen, but....

"I've come to find out whether Ranjoor Singh's alive or dead," he said sternly, "and, if he's alive, to take him away with me."

She smiled as graciously as evening smiles on the seeded plains, and sank on to a divan with the grace it needs a life of dancing to bestow.

"Sahib," she said, with a suddenly assumed air of candidness, "they have told the truth. There is little that goes on in Delhi—in the world—that I can not hear of if I will. The winds of the world flow in and out of these four walls."

"Then where is Ranjoor Singh?" asked Colonel Kirby.

She did not hesitate an instant. He was watching her amazing eyes that surely would have betrayed her had she been at a moment's loss; they did not change nor darken for a second.

"How much, does the sahib know already?" she asked calmly, as if she wished to spare him an unnecessary repetition of mere beginnings.

"A trooper of D Squadron—that's Ranjoor Singh's squadron—was murdered in the bazaar this afternoon. The risaldar-major went to the morgue to identify the body—drove through the bazaar, and possibly discovered some clue to the murderer. At all events, he is known to have entered a house in the bazaar, and that house is now in flames."

"The sahib knows that much? And am I to quell the flames?" asked Yasmini.

She neither sat nor lay on the divan. She was curled on it, leaning on an elbow, like an imp from another world.

"Who owns that house?" asked Kirby, since he could think of nothing else to ask.

"That is the House-of-the-Eight-Half—brothers," said Yasmini. "He who built it had eight wives, and a son by each. That was ages ago, and the descendants of the eight half-brothers are all at law about the ownership. There are many stories told about that house."

Suddenly she broke into laughter, leaning on her hand and mocking them as Puck mocked mortals. A man could not doubt her. Colonel and adjutant, both men who had seen grim service and both self-possessed as a rule, knew that she could read clean through them, and that from the bottom of her deep, wise soul she was amused.

"I am from the North," she said, "and the North is cold; there is little mercy in the hills, and I was weaned amid them. Yet—would the sahib not better beg of me?"

"How d'ye mean?" asked Kirby, surprised into speaking English.

"Three days ago there came a wind that told me of war— of a world-war, surely not this time stillborn. Two years ago the same wind brought me news of its conception, though the talk of the world was then of universal peace and of horror at a war that was. Now, to-night, this greatest war is loose, born and grown big within three days, but conceived two years ago—Russia, Germany, Austria, France are fighting—is it not so? Am I wrong?"

"I came to ask about Ranjoor Singh," said Colonel Kirby, twisting at his closely cropped mustache.

There was a hint of iron in his voice, and he was obviously not the man to threaten and not fulfil. But she laughed in his face.

"All in good time!" she answered him. "You shall beg for your Ranjoor Singh, and then perhaps he shall step forth from the burning house! But first you shall know why you must beg."

She clapped her hands, and a maid appeared. She gave an order, and the maid brought sherbet that Kirby sniffed suspiciously before tasting. Again she laughed deliciously.

"Does the sahib think that he could escape alive from this room did I will otherwise?" she asked. "Would I need to drug—I who have so many means?"

Now, it is a maxim of light cavalry that the best means of defense lies in attack; a threat of force should be met by a show of force, and force by something quicker. Kirby's eyes and his adjutant's met. Each felt for his hidden pistol. But she laughed at them with mirth that was so evidently unassumed that they blushed to their ears.

"Look!" she said; and they looked.

Two great gray cobras, male and female, swayed behind them less than a yard away, balanced for the strike, hoods raised. The awful, ugly black eyes gleamed with malice. And a swaying cobra's head is not an easy thing to hit with an automatic-pistol bullet, supposing, for wild imagination's sake, that the hooded devil does not strike first.

"It is not wise to move!" purred Yasmini.

They did not see her make any sign, though she must have made one, for their eyes were fixed on the swaying snakes, and their brains were active with the problem of whether to try to shoot or not. It seemed to them that the snakes reached a resolution first, and struck. And in the same instant as each drew his pistol the hooded messengers of death were jerked out of sight by hands that snatched at horsehair from behind the hangings.

"I have many such!" smiled Yasmini, and they turned to meet her eyes again, hoping she could not read the fear in theirs. "But that is not why the sahib shall beg of me." Kirby was not too overcome to notice the future tense. "That is only a reason why the sahibs should forget their Western manners. But—if the pistols please the sahibs—"

They stowed their pistols away again and sat as if the very cushions might be stuffed with snakes, both of them aware that she had produced a mental effect which was more to her advantage than the pistols would have been had they made her a present of them. She gave a sudden shrill cry that startled them and made them look wildly for the door; but she had done no more than command a punkah-wallah, and the heavy-beamed punkah began to swing rhythmically overhead, adding, if that were possible, to the mesmeric spell.

"Now," she said, "I will tell a little of the why of things." And Colonel Kirby hoped it was the punkah, and not funk, that made the sweat stream down his neck until his collar was a mere uncomfortable mess. "For more than a year there has been much talk in India. The winds have brought it all to me. There was talk—and the government has known it, for I am one of those who told the government—of a ripe time for a blow for independence.

"There have been agents of another Power, pretending to be merchants, who have sown their seed carefully in the bazaars. And then there went natives in the pay of the merchants who had word with native sowars, saying that it is not well to be carried over sea to fight another's quarrels. All this the government knew, though, of course, thou art not the government, but only a soldier with a ready pistol and a dull wit."

"What bearing has this on Ranjoor Singh?" asked Kirby. It was so long since he had been spoken to so bluntly that he could not sit still under it.

"I am explaining why the colonel sahib shall beg for his Ranjoor Singh," she smiled. "Does the fire burn yet, I wonder?"

She struck a gong, and a maid appeared in the door like an instant echo.

"Does the fire still burn?" she asked.

The maid disappeared, and was gone five minutes, during which Kirby and Warrington sat in silent wonder. They wondered chiefly what the regiment would say if it knew—and whether the regiment would ever know. Then the maid came back.

"It burns," she said. "I can see flame from the roof, though not so much flame."

"So," said Yasmini. "Listen, sahibs."

It is doubtful if a trumpet could have summoned them away, for she had them bound in her spells, and each in a different spell, as her way is. She had little need to order them to listen.

"The talk in the bazaars did little harm, for the fat bunnias know well whose rule has given them their pickings. They talk for the love of words, but they trade for the love of money, and the government protects their money. Nay, it was not the bunnias who mattered.

"But there came a day when the rings of talk had reached the hills, and hillmen came to Delhi to hear more, as they ever have come since India was India. And it was clear then to the government that proof of disloyalty among the native regiments would set the hillmen screaming for a holy war-for the hills are cold, sahibs, and the hillmen have cold hearts and are quick to take advantage, even as I am, of others' embarrassment. Hillmen have no mercy, Colonel sahib. I was weaned amid the hills."

It seemed to Kirby and Warrington both—for not all their wits were stupefied—that she was sparring for time. And then Warrington saw a face reflected in one of the mirrors and nudged Kirby, and Kirby saw it too. They both saw that she was watching it. It was a fat face, and it looked terrified, but the lips did not move and only the eyes had expression. In a moment a curtain seemed to be drawn in front of it, and Yasmini took up her tale.

"And then, sahibs, as I have told already, there came a wind that whistled about war; and it pleased the government to know which, if any, of the native regiments had been affected by the talk. So a closer watch was set, then a net was drawn, and Ranjoor Singh ran into the net."

"An antelope might blunder into a net set for a tiger," said Kirby. "I am here to cut him out again."

Yasmini laughed.

"With pistols to shoot the cobras and sweat to put out flame? Nay, what is there to cut but the dark that closes up again? Sahib, thou shalt beg for Ranjoor Singh, who struck a hillman in my house, he was so eager to hear treason!"

"Ranjoor Singh's honor and mine are one!" said Colonel Kirby, using a native phrase that admits of no double meaning, and for a second Yasmini stared at him in doubt.

She had heard that phrase used often to express native regard for a native, or for an Englishman, but never before by an Englishman for a native.

"Then beg for him!" she grinned mischievously. "Aye, I know the tale! It is the eve of war, and he commands a squadron, and there is need of him. Is it not so? Yet the house that he entered burns. And the hillman's knife is long and keen, sahib! Beg for him!"

Kirby had risen to his feet, and Warrington followed suit. Kirby's self-possession was returning and she must have known it; perhaps she even intended that it should. But she lay curled on the divan, laughing up at him, and perfectly unimpressed by his recovered dignity.

"If he's alive, and you know where he is," said Kirby, "I will pay you your price. Name it!"

"Beg for him! There is no other price. The House-of-the-Eight-Half- brothers burns! Beg for him!"

Now, the colonel of a regiment of light cavalry is so little given to beg for things that the word beg has almost lapsed out of his vocabulary from desuetude.

"I beg you to tell me where he is," he said stiffly, and she clapped her hands and laughed with such delight that he blushed to his ears again.

"I have had a prince on his knees to me, and many a priest," she chuckled, "aye, and many a soldier—but never yet a British colonel sahib. Kneel and beg!"

"Why—what—what d'ye mean?" demanded Kirby.

"Is his honor not your honor? I have heard it said. Then beg, Colonel sahib, on your knees—on those stiff British knees—beg for the honor of Ranjoor Singh!"

"D'you mean—d'you mean—?"

"Beg for his honor, and beg for his life, on your knees, Colonel sahib!"

"I could look the other way, sir," whispered Warrington, for the regiment's need was very real.

"Nay, both of you! Ye shall both beg!" said Yasmini, "or Ranjoor Singh shall taste a hillman's mercy. He shall die so dishonored that the regiment shall hang its head in shame."

"Impossible!" said Kirby. "His honor is as good as mine!'

"Then beg for his and thine—on your knees, Colonel sahib!"

Then it seemed to Colonel Kirby that the room began to swim, for what with the heat and what with an unconquerable dread of snakes, he was not in shape to play his will against this woman's.

"What if I kneel?" he asked.

"I will promise you Ranjoor Singh, alive and clean!"

"When?"

"In time!"

"In time for what?"

"Against the regiment's need!"

"No use. I want him at once!" said Colonel Kirby.

"Then go, sahib! Put out the fire with the sweat that streams from thee! Nay, go, both of you—ye have my leave to go! And what is a Sikh risaldar more or less? Nay, go, and let the Jat die!"

It is not to be written lightly that the British colonel of Outram's Own and his adjutant both knelt to a native woman—if she is a native—in a top back-room of a Delhi bazaar. But it has to be recorded that for the sake of Ranjoor Singh they did.

They knelt and placed their foreheads where she bade them, against the divan at her feet, and she poured enough musk in their hair, for the love of mischief, to remind them of what they had done until in the course of slowly moving nature the smell should die away. And then in a second the lights went out, each blown by a fan from behind the silken hangings.

They heard her silvery laugh, and they heard her spring to the floor. In cold, creeping sweat they listened to footsteps, and a little voice whispered in Hindustani:

"This way, sahibs!"

They followed, since there was nothing else to do and their pride was all gone, to be pushed and pulled by unseen hands and chuckling girls down stairs that were cut out of sheer blackness. And at the foot of the dark a voice that Warrington recognized shed new interest but no light on the mystery.

"Salaam, sahibs," said a fat babu, backing through a door in front of them and showing himself silhouetted against the lesser outer darkness. "Seeing regimental risaldar on the box seat, I took liberty. The risaldar-major is sending this by as yet unrewarded messenger, and word to the effect that back way out of burning house was easier than front way in. He sends salaam. I am unrewarded messenger."

He slipped something into Colonel Kirby's hands, and Kirby struck a match to examine it. It was Ranjoor Singh's ring that had the regimental crest engraved on it.

"Not yet rewarded!" said the babu.

Let the strong take the wall of the weak, (And there's plenty of room in the dust!) Let the bully be brave, but the meek No more in the way than he must. Be crimson and ermine and gold, Good lying and living and mirth, (Oh, laugh and be fat!) the reward of the bold, But—(sotto voce)—the meek shall inherit the earth!



CHAPTER VII

"That's the man whose face was in the mirror!" said Warrington suddenly, reaching out to seize the babu's collar. "He's the man who wanted to be regimental clerk! He's the man who was offering to eat a German a day!... No—stand still, and I won't hurt you!"

"Bring him out into the fresh air!" ordered Kirby.

The illimitable sky did not seem big enough just then; four walls could not hold him. Kirby, colonel of light cavalry, and considered by many the soundest man in his profession, was in revolt against himself; and his collar was a beastly mess.

"Hurry out of this hole, for heaven's sake!" he exclaimed.

So Warrington applied a little science to the babu, and that gentleman went out through a narrow door backward at a speed and at an angle that were new to him—so new that he could not express his sensations in the form of speech. The door shut behind them with a slam, and when they looked for it they could see no more than a mark in the wall about fifty yards from the bigger door by which they had originally entered.

"There's the carriage waiting, sir!" said Warrington, and with a glance toward it to reassure himself, Kirby opened his mouth wide and filled his lungs three times with the fresh, rain-sweetened air.

There were splashes of rain falling, and he stood with bared head, face upward, as if the rain would wash Yasmini's musk from him. It was nearly pitch-dark, but Warrington could just see that the risaldar on the box seat raised his whip to them in token of recognition.

"Now then! Speak, my friend! What were you doing in there?" demanded Warrington.

"No, not here!" said Kirby. "We might be recognized. Bring him into the shay."

The babu uttered no complaint, but allowed himself to be pushed along at a trot ahead of the adjutant, and bundled head-foremost through the carriage door.

"Drive slowly!" ordered Kirby, clambering in last; and the risaldar sent the horses forward at a steady trot.

"Now!" said Warrington.

"H-r-r-ump!" said Kirby.

"My God, gentlemen!" said the babu. "Sahibs, I am innocent of all complicitee in this or any other eventualitee. I am married man, having family responsibilitee and other handicaps. Therefore—"

"Where did you get this ring?" demanded Kirby.

"That? Oh, that!" said the babu. "That is veree simplee told. That is simple little matter. There is nothing untoward in that connection. Risaldar-Major Ranjoor Singh, who is legal owner of ring, same being his property, gave it into my hand."

"When?"

Both men demanded to know that in one voice.

"Sahibs, having no means of telling time, how can I guess?"

"How long ago? About how long ago?"

"Being elderly person of advancing years and much, adipose tissue, I am not able to observe more than one thing at a time. And yet many things have been forced on my attention. I do not know how long ago."

"Since I saw you outside the barrack gate?" demanded Warrington.

"Oh, yes. Oh, certainly. By all means!"

"Less than two hours ago, then, sir!" said Warrington, looking at his watch.

"Then he isn't burned to death!" said Kirby, with more satisfaction than he had expressed all the evening.

"Oh, no, sir! Positivelee not, sahib! The risaldar-major is all vitalitee!"

"Where did he give you the ring?"

"Into the palm of my hand, sahib."

"Where—in what place—in what street—at whose house?"

"At nobody's house, sahib. It was in the dark, and the dark is very big."

"Did he give it you at Yasmini's?"

"Oh, no, sahib! Positivelee not!"

"Where is he now?"

"Sahib, how should I know, who am but elderly person of no metaphysical attainments, only failed B.A.?"

"What did he say when he gave it to you?"

"Sahib, he threatened me!"

"Confound you, what did he say?"

"He said, 'Babuji, present this ring to Colonel Kirby sahib. You will find him, babuji, where you will find him, but in any case you will lose no time at all in finding him. When you have given the ring to him he will ask you questions, and you will say Ranjoor Singh said, "All will presently be made clear"; and should you forget the message, babuji, or should you fail to find him soon, there are those who will make it their urgent business, babuji, to open that belly of thine and see what is in it!' So, my God, gentlemen! I am veree timid man! I have given the ring and the message, but how will they know that I have given it? I did not think of that! Moreover, I am unrewarded—I have no emolument—as yet!"

"How will who know?" demanded Warrington.

"They, sahib."

"Who are they?" asked Kirby.

"The men who will investigate the inside of my belly, sahib. Oh, a belly is so sensitive! I am afraid!"

"Did he tell you who 'they' were?"

"No, sahib. Had he done so, I would at once have sought police protection. Not knowing names of individuals, what was use of going to police, who would laugh at me? I went to Yasmini, who understands all things. She laughed, too; but she told me where is Colonel Kirby sahib."

Colonel Kirby became possessed of a bright idea, his first since Yasmini had thrown her spell over him.

"Could you find the way," he asked, "from here to wherever it was that Risaldar-Major Ranjoor Singh gave you that ring?"

The babu thrust his head out of the carriage window and gazed into the dark for several minutes.

"Conceivablee yes, sahib."

"Then tell the driver where to turn!"

"I could direct with more discernment from box-seat," said the babu, with a hand on the door.

"No, you don't!" commanded Warrington.

"Let go that handle! What I want to know is why were you so afraid at Yasmini's?"

"I, sahib?"

"Yes, you! I saw your face in a mirror, and you were scared nearly to death. Of what?"

"Who is not afraid of Yasmini? Were the sahibs not also afraid?"

"Of what besides Yasmini were you afraid? Of what in particular?"

"Of her cobras, sahib!"

"What of them?" demanded Warrington, with a reminiscent shudder.

"Certain of her women showed them to me."

"Why?"

"To further convince me, sahib, had that been necessary. Oh, but I was already quite convinced. Bravery is not my vade mecum!"

"Confound the man! To convince you of what?"

"That if I tell too much one of those snakes will shortlee be my bedmate. Ah! To think of it causes me to perspirate with sweat. Sahibs, that is a—"

"You shall go to jail if you don't tell me what I want to know!" said Kirby.

"Ah, sahib, I was jail clerk once—dismissed for minor offenses but cumulative in effect. Being familiar with inside of jail, am able to make choice."

"Get on the box-seat with him!" commanded Kirby. "Let him show the driver where to turn. But watch him! Keep hold of him!"

So again the babu was propelled on an involuntary course, and Warrington proceeded to pinch certain of his fat parts to encourage him to mount the box with greater speed; but his helplessness became so obvious that Warrington turned friend and shoved him up at last, keeping hold of his loin-cloth when he wedged his own muscular anatomy into the small space left.

"To the right," said the babu, pointing. And the risaldar drove to the right.

"To the left," said the babu, and Warrington made note of the fact that they were not so very far away from the House-of-the-Eight-Half- brothers.

Soon the babu began to scratch his stomach.

"What's the matter?" demanded Warrington.

"They said they would cut my belly open, sahib! A belly is so sensitive!"

Warrington laughed sympathetically; for the fear was genuine and candidly expressed. The babu continued scratching.

"To the right," he said after a while, and the risaldar drove to the right, toward where a Hindu temple cast deep shadows, and a row of trees stood sentry in spasmodic moonlight. In front of the temple, seated on a mat, was a wandering fakir of the none-too-holy type. By his side was a flat covered basket.

"Look, sahib!" said the babu; and Warrington looked.

"My belly crawls!"

"What's the matter, man?"

"He is a fakir. There are snakes in that basket—cobras, sahib! Ow- ow-ow!"

Warrington, swaying precariously over the edge, held tight by the loin-cloth, depending on it as a yacht in a tideway would to three hundred pounds of iron.

"Oh, cobras are so veree dreadful creatures!" wailed the babu, caressing his waist again. "Look, sahib! Look! Oh, look! Between devil and over-sea what should a man do? Ow!"

The carriage lurched at a mud-puddle. The babu's weight lurched with it, and Warrington's center of gravity shifted. The babu seemed to shrug himself away from the snakes, but the effect was to shove Warrington the odd half-inch it needed to put him overside. He clung to the loin-cloth and pulled hard to haul himself back again, and the loin-cloth came away.

"Halt!" yelled Warrington; and the risaldar reined in.

But the horses took fright and plunged forward, though the risaldar swore afterward that the babu did nothing to them; he supposed it must have been the fakir squatting in the shadows that scared them.

And whatever it may have been—snakes or not—that had scared the babu, it had scared all his helplessness away. Naked from shirt to socks, he rolled like a big ball backward over the carriage top, fell to earth behind the carriage, bumped into Warrington, who was struggling to his feet, knocking him down again, and departed for the temple shadows, screaming. The temple door slammed just as Warrington started after him.

By that time the risaldar had got the horses stopped, and Colonel Kirby realized what had happened.

"Come back, Warrington!" he ordered peremptorily.

Warrington obeyed, but without enthusiasm.

"I can run faster than that fat brute, sir!" he said. "And I saw him go into the temple. We won't find Ranjoor Singh now in a month of Sundays!"

He was trying to wipe the mud from himself with the aid of the loin-cloth.

"Anyhow, I've got the most important part of his costume," he said vindictively. "Gad, I'd like to get him on the run now through the public street!"

"Come along in!" commanded Kirby, opening the door. "There has been trouble enough already without a charge of temple breaking. Tell the risaldar to drive back to quarters. I'm going to get this musk out of my hair before dawn!"

Warrington sniffed as he climbed in. The outer night had given him at least a standard by which to judge things.

"I'd give something to listen to the first man who smells the inside of this shay!" he said cheerily. "D 'you suppose we can blame it on the babu, sir?"

"We can try!" said Kirby. "Is that his loin-cloth you've got still?"

"Didn't propose to leave it in the road for him to come and find, sir! His present shame is about the only consolation prize we get out of the evening's sport. I wish it smelt of musk—but it doesn't; it smells of babu—straight babu, undiluted. Hallo—what's this?"

He began to untwist a corner of the cloth, holding it up to get a better view of it in the dim light that entered through the window. He produced a piece of paper that had to be untwisted, too.

"Got a match, sir?"

Kirby struck one.

"It's addressed to 'Colonel Kirby sahib!' Bet you it's from Ranjoor Singh! Now—d'you suppose that heathen meant to hold on to that until he could get his price for it?"

"Dunno," said Kirby with indifference, opening the note as fast as trembling fingers could unfold it. He would not have admitted to himself what his fingers told so plainly—the extent of his regard for Ranjoor Singh.

The note was short, and Kirby read it aloud, since it was not marked private, and there was nothing in it that even the babu might not have read:

"To Colonel Kirby sahib, from his obedient servant, Risaldar-Major Ranjoor Singh—Leave of absence being out of question after declaration of war, will Colonel Kirby sahib please put in Order of the Day that Risaldar-Major Ranjoor Singh is assigned to special duty, or words to same effect?"

"Is that all?" asked Warrington.

"That's all," said Kirby.

"Suppose it's a forgery?"

"The ring rather proves it isn't, and I've another way of knowing."

"Oh!"

"Yes," said Kirby.

They sat in silence in the swaying shay until the smell of musk and the sense of being mystified became too much for Warrington, and he began to hum to himself. Humming brought about a return to his usual wide-awakefulness, and he began to notice things.

"Shay rides like a gun," he said suddenly.

Kirby grunted.

"All the weight's behind and—" He put his head out of the window to investigate, but Kirby ordered him to sit still.

"Want to be recognized?" he demanded. "Keep your head inside, you young ass!"

So Warrington sat back against the cushions until the guard at the barrack gate turned out to present arms to the risaldar's raised whip. As if he understood the requirements of the occasion without being told, the risaldar sent the horses up the drive at a hard gallop. It was rather more than half-way up the drive that Warrington spoke again.

"Feel that, sir?" he asked.

"I ordered that place to be seen to yesterday!" growled Kirby. "Why wasn't it done?"

"It was, sir."

"Why did we bump there, then?"

"Why aren't we running like a gun any longer?" wondered Warrington. "Felt to me as if we'd dropped a load."

"Well, here we are, thank God! What do you mean to do?"

"Rounds," said Warrington.

"Very well."

Kirby dived through his door, while Warrington went behind the shay to have a good look for causes. He could find none, although a black leather apron, usually rolled up behind in order to be strapped over baggage when required, was missing.

"Didn't see who took that apron, did you?" he asked the risaldar; but the risaldar had not known that it was gone.

"All right, then, and thank you!" said Warrington, walking off into the darkness bareheaded, to help the smell evaporate from his hair; and the shay rumbled away to its appointed place, with the babu's loin-cloth inside it on the front seat.

It need surprise nobody that Colonel Kirby found time first to go to his bathroom. His regiment was as ready for active service at any minute as a fire-engine should be—in that particular, India's speed is as three to Prussia's one. The moment orders to march should come, he would parade it in full marching order and lead it away. But there were no orders yet; he had merely had warning.

So he sent for dog-soap and a brush, and proceeded to scour his head. After twenty minutes of it, and ten changes of water, when he felt that he dared face his own servant without blushing, he made that wondering Sikh take turns at shampooing him until he could endure the friction no longer.

"What does my head smell of now?" he demanded.

"Musk, sahib!"

"Not of dog-soap?"

"No, sahib!"

"Bring that carbolic disinfectant here!"

The servant obeyed, and Kirby mixed a lotion that would outsmell most things. He laved his head in it generously, and washed it off sparingly.

"Bring me brown paper?" he ordered then; and again the wide-eyed Sikh obeyed.

Kirby rolled the paper into torches, and giving the servant one, proceeded to fumigate the room and his own person until not even a bloodhound could have tracked him back to Yasmini's, and the reek of musk had been temporarily, at least, subdued into quiescence.

"Go and ask Major Brammle to come and see me," said Kirby then.

* * * * *

Brammle came in sniffing, and Kirby cursed him through tight lips with words that were no less fervent for lack of being heard.

"Hallo! Burning love-letters? The whole mess is doin' the same thing. Haven't had time to burn mine yet—was busy sorting things over when you called. Look here!"

He opened the front of his mess-jacket and produced a little lace handkerchief, a glove and a powder-puff.

"Smell 'em!" he said. "Patchouli! Shame to burn 'em, what? S'pose I must, though."

"Any thing happen while I was gone?" asked Kirby.

"Yes. Most extraordinary thing. You know that a few hours ago D Squadron were all sitting about in groups looking miserable? We set it down to their trooper being murdered and another man being missing. Well, just about the time you and Warrington drove off in the mess shay, they all bucked up and began grinning! Wouldn't say a word. Just grinned, and became the perkiest squadron of the lot!

"Now they're all sleeping like two-year-olds. Reason? Not a word of reason! I saw young Warrington just now on his way to their quarters with a lantern, and if he can find any of 'em awake perhaps he can get the truth out of 'em, for they'll talk to him when they won't to anybody else. By the way, Warrington can't have come in with you, did he?"

Kirby ignored the question.

"Did you tell Warrington to go and ask them?" he demanded.

"Yes. Passed him in the dark, but did not recognize him by the smell. No—no! Got as near him as I could, and then leaned up against the scent to have a word with him! Musk! Never smelt anything like it in my life! Talk about girls! He must be in love with half India, and native at that! Brazen-faced young monkey! I asked him where he got the disinfectant, and he told me he fell into a mud-puddle!"

"Perhaps he did," said Kirby. "Was there mud on him?"

"Couldn't see. Didn't dare get so near him! Don't you think he ought to be spoken to? I mean, the eve of war's the eve of war and all that kind of thing, but—"

"I wish you'd let me see the Orders of the Day," Kirby interrupted. "I want to make an addition to them."

"I'll send an orderly."

"Wish you would."

Five minutes later Kirby sat at his private desk, while Brammle puffed at a cigar by the window. Kirby, after a lot of thinking, wrote:

"Risaldar-Major Ranjoor Singh (D Squadron) assigned to special duty."

He handed the orders back to Brammle, and the major eyed the addition with subdued amazement.

"What'll D Squadron say?" he asked.

"Remains to be seen" said Kirby.

Outside in the muggy blackness that shuts down on India in the rains, Warrington walked alone, swinging a lantern and chuckling to himself as he reflected what D Squadron would be likely to invent as a reason for the smell that walked with him. For he meant to wake D Squadron and learn things.

But all at once it occurred to him that he had left the babu's loin-cloth on the inside front seat of the shay; and, because if that were seen it would have given excuse for a thousand tales too many and too imaginative, he hurried in search of it, taking a short cut to where by that time the shay should be. On his way, close to his destination, he stumbled over something soft that tripped him. He stooped, swung the lantern forward, and picked up—the missing leather apron from behind the shay.

The footpath on which he stood was about a yard wide; the shay could not possibly have come along it. And it certainly had been behind the shay when they left barracks. Moreover, close examination proved it to be the identical apron beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Warrington began to hum to himself. And then he ceased from humming. Then he set the lantern down and stepped away from it sidewise until its light no longer shone on him. He listened, as a dog does, with intelligence and skill. Then, suddenly, he sprang and lit on a bulky mass that yielded—gasped—spluttered—did anything but yell.

"So you rode on the luggage-rack behind the carriage, did you, babuji?" he smiled. "And curled under the apron to look like luggage when we passed the guard, eh?"

"But, my God, sahib!" said a plaintive voice. "Should I walk through Delhi naked? You, who wear pants, you laugh at me, but I assure you, sahib—"

"Hush!" ordered Warrington; and the babu seemed very glad to hush.

"There was a note in a corner of that cloth of yours!"

"And the sahib found it? Oh, then I am relieved. I am preserved from pangs of mutual regret!"

"Why didn't you give that note to Colonel Kirby sahib when you had the chance? Eh?" asked Warrington, keeping firm hold of him.

"Sahib! Your honor! Not being yet remunerated on account of ring and verbal message duly delivered, commercial precedent was all on my side that I should retain further article of value pending settlement. Now, I ask you—"

"Where was Ranjoor Singh when he gave you that ring and message?" demanded Warrington sternly, increasing his grip on the babu's fat arm.

"Sahib, when I have received payment for first service rendered, my disposition may be changed. I am as yet in condition of forma pauperis."

Still holding him tight, Warrington produced twenty rupees in paper money.

"Can you see those, babuji? See them? Then earn them!"

"Oh, my God, sahib, I have positivelee earned a lakh of rupees this night already!"

"Where was Risaldar-Major Ranjoor Singh when he—"

Footsteps were approaching—undoubtedly a guard on his way to investigate. The babu seemed to sense Warrington's impatience.

"Sahib" he said, "I am very meek person, having family of wife and children all dependent. Is that rupees twenty? I would graciously accept same, and positivelee hold my tongue!"

The steps came nearer.

"I was on my way to D Squadron quarters, sahib, to narrate story and pass begging bowl. Total price of story rupees twenty. Or else the sahib may deliver me to guard, and guard shall be regaled free gratis with full account of evening's amusement? Yes?"

The steps came nearer yet. Recognizing an officer, the men halted a few paces away.

"Sahib, for sum of rupees twenty I could hold tongue for twenty years, unless in meantime deceased, in which case—"

"Take 'em!" ordered Warrington; and the babu's fingers shut tight on the money.

"Guard!" ordered Warrington. "Put this babu out into the street!"

"Good night, sahib!" said the babu. "Kindlee present my serious respects to the colonel sahib. Salaam, sahib!"

But Warrington had gone into the darkness.

The Four Winds come, the Four Winds go, (Ye wise o' the world, oh, listen ye!), Whispering, whistling what they know, Wise, since wandering made them so (Ye stay-at-homes, oh, listen ye!). Ever they seek and sift and pry— Listening here, and hurrying by— Restless, ceaseless—know ye why? (Then, wise o' the world, oh, listen ye!) The goal of the search of the hurrying wind Is the key to the maze of a woman's mind, (And there is no key! Oh, listen ye!)

YASMINI'S SONG.



CHAPTER VIII

So in a darkness that grew blacker every minute, Warrington swung his lantern and found his way toward D Squadron's quarters. He felt rather pleased with himself. From his own point of view he would have rather enjoyed to have a story anent himself and Yasmini go the round of barracks—with modifications, of course, and the kneeling part left out—but he realized that it would not do at all to have Colonel Kirby's name involved in anything of the sort, and he rather flattered himself on his tact in bribing the babu or being blackmailed by him.

"Got to admit that babu's quite a huntsman!" he told himself, beginning to hum. "One day, if the war doesn't account for me, I'll come back and take a fall out of that babu. Hallo—what's that? Who in thunder—who's waking up the horses at this unearthly hour? Sick horse, I suppose. Why don't they get him out and let the others sleep?"

He began to hurry. A light in stables close to midnight was not to be accounted for on any other supposition than an accident or serious emergency, and if there were either it was his affair as adjutant to know all the facts at once.

"What's going on in there?" he shouted in a voice of authority while he was yet twenty yards away.

But there was no answer. He could hear a horse plunge, but nothing more.

"Um-m-m! Horse cast himself!" he straightway decided.

But there was no cast horse, as he was aware the moment he had looked down both long lines of sleepy brutes that whickered their protest against interrupted sleep. At the far end he could see that two men labored, and a big horse fiercely resented their unseasonable attentions to himself. He walked down the length of the stable, and presently recognized Bagh, Ranjoor Singh's charger.

"What are you grooming him for at this hour?" he demanded.

"It is an order, sahib."

"Whose order?"

"Ranjoor Singh sahib's order."

"The deuce it is! When did the order come?"

"But now."

"Who brought it?"

"A babu, with a leather apron."

Warrington walked away ten paces in order to get command of himself, and pinch himself, and make quite sure he was awake.

"A fat babu?" he asked, walking back again.

"Very fat," said one of the troopers, continuing to brush the resentful charger.

"So he delivered his message first, and then went to hunt for his loin-cloth!" mused Warrington. "And he had enough intuition, and guts enough, to look for it first in the shay! I'm beginning to admire that man!" Aloud he asked the trooper: "What was the wording of the risaldar-major sahib's message?"

"'Let Bagh be well groomed and held ready against all contingencies!'" said the trooper.

"Then take him outside!" ordered Warrington. "Groom him where you won't disturb the other horses! How often have you got to be told that a horse needs sleep as much as a man? The squadron won't be fit to march a mile if you keep 'em awake all night! Lead him out quietly, now! Whoa, you brute! Now—take him out and keep him out— put him in the end stall in my stable when you've finished him—d'you hear?"

He flattered himself again. With all these mysterious messages and orders coming in from nowhere, he told himself it would be good to know at all times where Ranjoor Singh's charger was, as well as a service to Ranjoor Singh to stable the brute comfortably. He told himself that was a very smart move, and one for which Ranjoor Singh would some day thank him, provided, of course, that—

"Provided what?" he wondered half aloud. "Seems to me as if Ranjoor Singh has got himself into some kind of a scrape, and hopes to get out of it by the back-door route and no questions asked! Well, let's hope he gets out! Let's hope there'll be no court-martial nastiness! Let's hope—oh, damn just hoping! Ranjoor Singh's a better man than I am. Here's believing in him! Here's to him, thick and thin! Forward— walk—march!"

He turned out the guard, and the particular troop sergeant with whom he wished to speak not being on duty, he ordered him sent for. Ten minutes later the sergeant came, still yawning, from his cot.

"Come over here, Arjan Singh," he called, thinking fast and furiously as he led the way.

If he made one false move or aroused one suspicion in the man's mind, he was likely to learn less than nothing; but if he did not appear to know at least something, he would probably learn nothing either.

As he turned, at a distance from the guard-room light, to face the sergeant, though not to meet his eyes too keenly, the fact that would not keep out of his brain was that the fat babu had been out in the road, offering to eat Germans, a little while before he and the colonel had started out that evening. And, according to what Brammle had told him when they met near the colonel's quarters, it was very shortly after that that the squadron came out of its gloom.

"What was the first message that the babu brought this evening?" he asked, still being very careful not to look into the sergeant's eyes. He spoke as comrade to comrade—servant of the "Salt" to servant of the "Salt."

"Which babu, sahib?" asked Arjan Singh, unblinking.

Now, in all probability, this man—since he had been asleep—knew nothing about the message to groom Bagh. To have answered, "The babu who spoke about the charger," might have been a serious mistake.

"Arjan Singh, look me in the eyes!" he ordered, and the Sikh obeyed. He was taller than Warrington, and looked down on him.

"Are you a true friend of the risaldar-major?"

"May I die, sahib, if I am not!"

"And I? What of me? Am I his friend or his enemy?"

The sergeant hesitated.

"Can I read men's hearts?" he asked.

"Yes!" said Warrington. "And so can I. That is why I had you called from your sleep. I sent for you to learn the truth. What was the message given by the fat babu to one of the guard by the outer gate this evening, and delivered by him or by some other man to D Squadron?"

"Sahib, it was not a written message."

"Repeat it to me."

"Sahib, it was verbal. I can not remember it."

"Arjan Singh, you lie! Did I ever lie to you? Did I ever threaten you and not carry out my threats—promise you and not keep my promise? I am a soldier! Are you a cur?"

"God forbid, sahib! I—"

"Arjan Singh! Repeat that message to me word for word, please, not as a favor, nor as obeying an order, but as a friend of Ranjoor Singh to a friend of Ranjoor Singh!"

"The message was to the squadron, not to me, sahib."

"Are you not of the squadron?"

"Make it an order, sahib!"

"Certainly not—nor a favor either!"

"Sahib, I—"

"Nor will I threaten you! I guarantee you absolute immunity if you refuse to repeat it. My word on it! I am Ranjoor Singh's friend, and I ask of his friend!"

"The babu said: 'Says Ranjoor Singh, "Let the squadron be on its best behavior! Let the squadron know that surely before the blood runs he will be there to lead it, wherever it is! Meanwhile, let the squadron be worthy of its salt and of its officers!"'"

"Was that all?" asked Warrington.

"All, sahib. May my tongue rot if I lie!"

"Thank you, Arjan Singh. That's all. You needn't mention our conversation. Good night."

"Fooled," chuckled Warrington. "She's fooled us to the limit of our special bent, and I take it that's stiff-neckedness!"

He hurried away toward Colonel Kirby's quarters, swinging his lantern and humming to himself.

"And this isn't the Arabian Nights!" he told himself. "It's Delhi— Twentieth Century A.D.! Gad! Wouldn't the whole confounded army rock with laughter!"

Then he stopped chuckling, to hurry faster, for a giant horn had rooted chunks out of the blackness by the barrack gate, and now what sounded like a racing car was tearing up the drive. The head-lights dazzled him, but he ran and reached the colonel's porch breathless. He was admitted at once, and found the colonel and Brammle together, facing an aide-de-camp. In the colonel's hand was a medium-sized, sealed envelope.

"Shall I repeat it, sir?" asked the aide-de-camp.

"Yes, if you think it necessary" answered Kirby.

"The sealed orders are not to be opened until out at sea. You are expected to parade at dawn the day after to-morrow, and there will be somebody from headquarters to act as guide for the occasion. In fact, you will be guided at each point until it is time to open your orders. No explanations will be given about anything until later on. That's all. Good night, sir—and good luck!"

The aide-de-camp held out his hand, and Colonel Kirby shook it a trifle perfunctorily; he was not much given to display of sentiment. The aide-de-camp saluted, and a minute later the giant car spurned the gravel out from under its rear wheels as it started off to warn another regiment.

"So we've got our route!" said Kirby.

"And, thank God, we take our own horses!" said Brammle fervently.

"Bet you a thousand the other end's Marseilles!" said Warrington. "We're in luck. They'd have mounted us on bus-horses if we hadn't brought our own; we'd have had to ring a bell to start and stop a squadron. Who wouldn't be light cavalry?"

Kirby put the sealed letter in an inside pocket.

"I'm going to sleep," said Brammle, yawning. "Night, sir!"

"Night!" said Kirby; but Warrington stayed on. He went and stood near the window, and when Kirby had seen Brammle to the door, he joined him there.

"What now, Warrington?"

"Caught 'em grooming Ranjoor Singh's charger in the dark!"

"Why?"

"Said it was an order from Ranjoor Singh!"

"I'm getting tired of this. I don't know what to make of it."

"That isn't nearly the worst, sir. Listen to this! Long before Yasmini promised us—before we knelt to save his life and honor— Ranjoor Singh had sent a message to his squadron guaranteein' to be with 'em before the blood runs! Specific guarantee, and no conditions!"

"Then—"

"Exactly, sir!"

"She fooled us, eh?"

"D'you suppose she's for or against the government, sir?"

"I don't know. Thank God we've got our marching orders! Go and wash your head! And, Warrington—hold your tongue!"

Warrington held up his right hand.

"So help me, sir!" he grinned, "But will she hold hers?"

Westward, into the hungry West, (Oh, listen, wise men, listen ye!) Whirls the East Wind on his quest, Whimpering, worrying, hurrying, lest The light o'ertake him. Listen ye! Mark ye the burden of his sigh: "Westward sinks the sun to die! Westward wing the vultures!"—Aye, (Listen, wise men, listen ye!) The East must lose—the West must gain, For none come back to the East again, Though widows call them! Listen ye!

YASMINI'S SONG.



CHAPTER IX

Now, India is unlike every other country in the world in all particulars, and Delhi is in some respects the very heart through which India's unusualness flows. Delhi has five railway stations with which to cope with latter-day floods of paradoxical necessity; and nobody knew from which railway station troops might be expected to entrain or whither, although Delhi knew that there was war.

There did not seem to be anything very much out of the ordinary at any of the stations. In India one or two sidings are nearly always full of empty trains; there did not seem to be more of them than usual.

At the British barracks there was more or less commotion, because Thomas Atkins likes to voice his joy when the long peace breaks at last and he may justify himself; but in the native lines, where dignity is differently understood, the only men who really seemed unusually busy were the farriers, and the armourers who sharpened swords.

The government offices appeared to be undisturbed, and certainly no more messengers ran about than usual, the only difference was that one or two of them were open at a very early hour. But even in them— and Englishmen were busy in them—there seemed no excitement. Delhi had found time in a night to catch her breath and continue listening; for, unlike most big cities that brag with or without good reason, Delhi is listening nearly all the time.

A man was listening in the dingiest of all the offices on the ground floor of a big building on the side away from the street—a man in a drab silk suit, who twisted a leather watch-guard around his thumb and untwisted it incessantly. There was a telephone beside him, and a fair-sized pile of telegraph forms, but beyond that not much to show what his particular business might be. He did not look aggressive, but he seemed nervous, for he jumped perceptibly when the telephone-bell rang; and being a government telephone, with no commercial aims, it did not ring loud.

"Yes," he said, with the receiver at his ear. "Yes, yes. Who else? Oh, I forgot for the moment. Four, three, two, nine, two. Give yours! Very well, I'm listening."

Whoever was speaking at the other end had a lot to say, and none of it can have been expected, for the man in the drab silk suit twisted his wrinkled face and worked his eyes in a hundred expressions that began with displeasure and passed through different stages of surprise to acquiescence.

"I want you to know," he said, "that I got my information at first hand. I got it from Yasmini herself, from three of the hill-men who were present, and from the Afridi who was kicked and beaten. All except the Afridi, who wasn't there by that time, agreed that Ranjoor Singh had words with the German afterward. Eh? What's that?"

He listened again for about five minutes, and then hung up the receiver with an expression of mixed irritation and amusement.

"Caught me hopping on the wrong leg this time!" he muttered, beginning to twist at his watch-guard again.

Presently he sat up and looked bored, for he heard the fast trot of a big, long-striding horse. A minute later a high dogcart drew up in the street, and he heard a man's long—striding footsteps coming round the corner.

"Like horse, like man, like regiment!" he muttered. "Pick his stride or his horse's out of a hundred, and"—he pulled out his nickel watch —"he's ten minutes earlier than I expected him! Morning, Colonel Kirby!" he said pleasantly, as Kirby strode in, helmet in hand. "Take a seat."

He noticed Kirby's scalp was red and that he smelt more than faintly of carbolic.

"Morning!" said Kirby.

"I'm wondering what's brought you," said the man in drab.

"I've come about Ranjoor Singh," said Kirby; and the man in drab tried to look surprised.

"What about him? Reconsidered yesterday's decision?"

"No," said Kirby. "I've come to ask what news you have of him." And Kirby's eye, that some men seemed to think so like a bird's, transfixed the man in drab, so that he squirmed as if he had been impaled.

"You must understand, Colonel Kirby—in fact, I'm sure you do understand—that my business doesn't admit of confidences. Even if I wanted to divulge information, I'm not allowed to. I stretched a point yesterday when I confided in you my suspicions regarding Ranjoor Singh, but that doesn't imply that I'm going to tell you all I know. I asked you what you knew, you may remember."

"I told you!" snapped Kirby. "Is Ranjoor Singh still under suspicion?"

That was a straight question of the true Kirby type that admitted of no evasion, and the man in drab pulled his watch out, knocking it on the desk absent-mindedly, as if it were an egg that he wished to crack. He must either answer or not, it seemed, so he did neither.

"Why do you ask?" he parried.

"I've a right to know! Ranjoor Singh's my wing commander, and a better officer or a more loyal gentleman doesn't exist. I want him! I want to know where he is! And if he's under a cloud, I want to know why! Where is he?"

"I don't know where he is," said the man in drab. "Is he—ah—absent without leave?"

"Certainly not!" said Kirby. "I've seen to that!"

"Then you've communicated with him?"

"No."

"Then if his regiment were to march without him—"

"It won't if I can help it!" said Kirby.

"And if you can't help it, Colonel Kirby?"

"In that case he has got what he asked for, and there can be no charge against him until he shows up."

"I understand you have your marching orders?"

"I have sealed orders!" snapped Kirby.

"To be opened at sea?"

"To be opened when I see fit!"

"Oh!"

"Yes," said Kirby. "I asked you is Ranjoor Singh still under suspicion!"

"My good sir, I am not the arbiter of Ranjoor Singh's destiny! How should I know?"

"I intend to know!" vowed Kirby, rising.

"I'm prepared to state that Ranjoor Singh is not in danger of arrest. I don't see that you have right to ask more than that, Colonel Kirby. Martial law has been declared this morning, and things don't take their ordinary course any longer, you know."

Kirby paced once across the office floor, and once back again. Then he faced the man in drab as a duelist faces his antagonist.

"I don't like to go over men's heads," he said, "as you threatened to do to me, for instance, yesterday. If you will give me satisfactory assurance that Ranjoor Singh is being treated as a loyal officer should be, I will ask no more. If not, I shall go now to the general commanding. As you say, there's martial law now, he's the man to see."

"Colonel Kirby," said the man in drab, twisting at his watch-guard furiously, "if you'll tell me what's in your sealed orders—open them and see—I'll tell you what I know about Ranjoor Singh, and we'll call it a bargain!"

"I wasn't joking," said Kirby, turning red as his scalp from the roots of his hair to his collar.

"I'm in deadly earnest!" said the man in drab.

So, without a word more, Colonel Kirby hurried out again, carrying his saber in his left hand at an angle that was peculiar to him, and that illustrated determination better than words could have done.

His huge horse plunged away almost before he had gained the seat, and, saber and all, he gained the seat at a step-and-a-jump. But the sais was not up behind, and Kirby had scarcely settled down to drive before the man in drab had the telephone mouthpiece to his lips and had given his mysterious number again—4-3-2-9-2.

"He's coming, sir!" he said curtly.

Somebody at the other end apparently asked, "Who is coming?" for the man in drab answered:

"Kirby."

* * * * *

Five minutes later Kirby caught a general at breakfast, and was received with courtesy and feigned surprise.

"D'you happen to know anything about my risaldar-major, Ranjoor Singh?" asked Kirby, after a hasty apology for bursting in.

"Why?"

"He was under suspicion yesterday—I was told so. Next he disappeared. Then I received a message from him asking me to assign him to special duty; that was after I'd more than half believed him burned to death in a place called the 'House-of-the-Eight-Half- brothers.' He has sent some most extraordinary messages to his squadron by the hand of a mysterious babu, but not a word of explanation of any kind. Can you tell me anything about him, sir?"

"Wasn't a trooper of yours murdered yesterday?" the general asked.

"Yes," said Kirby.

"And another missing?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did Ranjoor Singh go off to search for the missing man?"

"I was told so."

"H-rrrr-ump! Well, I'm glad you came; you've saved me trouble! Did you put Ranjoor Singh in Orders as assigned to special duty?"

"Yes."

"What is the missing trooper's name?"

"Jagut Singh."

"Well, please enter him in Orders, too."

"Special service?"

"Special service," said the general. "How about Ranjoor Singh's charger?"

"I understand that he's been kept well groomed by Ranjoor Singh's orders, and my adjutant tells me he has the horse in care in his own stable."

The general made a note.

"Whose stable?" lie asked.

"Warrington's."

"Warrington, of Outram's Own, eh? Captain Warrington?"

The general wrote that down, while Kirby watched him bewildered.

"Well now, Kirby, that'll be all right Have the horse left there, will you? I hope You've been able to dispose of your own horses to advantage. Two chargers don't seem a large allowance for a commanding officer of a cavalry regiment, but that's all you can take with you. You'll have to leave the rest behind."

"Haven't given it a thought, sir! Too busy thinking about Ranjoor Singh. Worried about him."

"Shouldn't worry!" said the general. "Ranjoor Singh's all right."

"That's the first assurance I've had of it, except by way of a mysterious note," said Kirby.

"By all right, I mean that he isn't in disgrace. But now about your horses and private effects. You've done nothing about them?"

"I'll have time to attend to that this afternoon, sir."

"Oh, no, you won't. That's why I'm glad you came! These"—he gave him a sealed envelope—"are supplementary orders, to be opened when you get back to barracks. I want you out of the way by noon if possible. We'll send a man down this morning to take charge of whatever any of you want kept, and you'd better tell him to sell the rest and pay the money to your bankers; he'll be a responsible officer. That's all. Good-by, Kirby, and good luck!"

The general held out his hand.

"One more minute, sir," said Kirby. "About Ranjoor Singh!"

"What about him?"

"Well, sir—what about him?"

"What have you heard?"

"That—I've heard a sort of promise that he'll be with his squadron, to lead it, before the blood runs."

"Won't that be time enough?" asked the general, smiling. He was looking at Kirby very closely. "Not sick, are you?" he asked. "No? I thought your scalp looked rather redder than usual."

Kirby flushed to the top of his collar instantly, and the general pretended to arrange a sheaf of papers on the table.

"One reason why you're being sent first, my boy," said the general, holding out his hand again, "is that you and your regiment are fittest to be sent. But I've taken into consideration, too, that I don't want you or your adjutant killed by a cobra in any event. And— snf—snf—the salt sea air gets rid of the smell of musk quicker than anything. Good-by, Kirby, my boy, and God bless you!"

"Good-by, sir!"

Kirby stammered the words, and almost ran down the steps to his waiting dog-cart. As all good men do, when undeserved ridicule or blame falls to their lot, he wondered what in the world he could have done wrong.

He had no blame for anybody, only a fierce resentment of injustice— an almost savage sense of shame that any one should know about the adventure of the night before, and a rising sense of joy in his soldier's heart because he had orders in his pocket to be up and doing. So, and only so, could he forget it all.

He whipped up his horse and went down the general's drive at a pace that made the British sentry at the gate grin from ear to ear with whole-souled approval. He did not see a fat babu approach the general's bungalow from the direction of the bazaar. The babu salaamed profoundly, but Kirby's eyes were fixed on the road ahead, and his thoughts were already deep in the future. He saw nothing except the road, until he took the last corner into barracks on one wheel, and drew up a minute later in front of the bachelor quarters that had sheltered him for the past four years.

* * * * *

"Pack! Campaign kit! One trunk!" he ordered his servant. "Orderly!"

An orderly ran in from outside.

"Tell Major Brammle and Captain Warrington to come to me!"

It took ten minutes to find Warrington, since every job was his, and nearly every responsibility, until his colonel should take charge of a paraded, perfect regiment, and lead it away to its fate. He came at last, however, and on the run, and Brammle with him.

"Orders changed!" said Kirby. "March at noon! Man'll be here this morning to take charge of officers' effects. Better have things ready for him and full instructions. One trunk allowed each officer. Two chargers."

"Destination, sir?" asked Brammle.

"Not disclosed!"

"Where do we entrain?" asked Warrington.

"We march out of Delhi. Entrain later, at a place appointed on the road."

Warrington began to hum to himself and to be utterly, consciously happy.

"Then I'll get a move on!" he said, starting to hurry out. "Everything's ready, but—"

"Wait a minute!" commanded Kirby; and Warrington remained in the room after Brammle had left it.

"You haven't said anything to anybody, of course, about that incident last night?"

"No, sir."

"Then she has!"

Warrington whistled.

"Are you sure she has?"

"Quite. I've just had proof of it!"

"Makes a fellow reverence the sex!" swore Warrington.

"It'll be forgotten by the time we're back in India," said Kirby solemnly. "Remember to keep absolutely silent about it. The best way to help others forget it is to forget it yourself. Not one word now to anybody, even under provocation!"

"Not a word, sir!"

"All right. Go and attend to business!"

What "attending to business" meant nobody can guess who has not been in at the breaking up of quarters at short notice. Everything was ready, as Warrington had boasted, but even an automobile may "stall" for a time in the hands of the best chauffeur, and a regiment contains as many separate human equations as it has men in its ranks.

The amount of personal possessions that had to be jettisoned, or left to the tender mercies of a perfunctory agent, would have wrung groans from any one but soldiers. The last minute details that seemed to be nobody's job, and that, therefore, all fell to Warrington because somebody had to see to them, were beyond the imagination of any but an adjutant, and not even Warrington's imagination proved quite equal to the task.

"We're ready, sir!" he reported at last to Kirby. "We're paraded and waiting. Brammle's inspected 'em, and I've done ditto. There are only thirteen thousand details left undone that I can't think of, and not one of 'em's important enough to keep us waitin'!"

So Kirby rode out on parade and took the regiment's salute. There was nobody to see them off. There were not even women to wail by the barrack gate, for they marched away at dinner-time and official lies had been distributed where they would do most good.

Englishman and Sikh alike rode untormented by the wails or waving farewells of their kindred; and there was only a civilian on a white pony, somewhere along ahead, who seemed to know that they were more than just parading. He led them toward the Ajmere Gate, and by the time that the regiment's luggage came along in wagons, with the little rear-guard last of all, it was too late to run and warn people. Outram's Own had gone at high noon, and nobody the wiser!

There was no music as they marched and no talking. Only the jingling bits and rattling hoofs proclaimed that India's best were riding on a sudden summons to fight for the "Salt." They marched in the direction least expected of them, three-quarters of a day before their scheduled time, and even "Guppy," the mess bull-terrier, who ran under the wagon with the officers' luggage, behaved as if all ends of the world were one to him. He waved his tail with dignity and trotted in content.

Hard by the Ajmere Gate they halted, for some bullock carts had claimed their centuries-long prerogative of getting in the way. While the bullocks, to much tail-twisting and objurgation, labored in the mud in every direction but the right one, Colonel Kirby sat his charger almost underneath the gate, waiting patiently. Then the advance-guard clattered off and he led along.

He never knew where it came from and he never tried to guess. He caught it instinctively, and kept it for the sake of chivalry, or perhaps because she had made him think for a moment of his mother. At all events, the bunch of jasmine flowers that fell into his lap found a warm berth under his buttoned tunic, and he rode on through the great gate with a kinder thought for Yasmini than probably she would guess.

With that resentment gone, he could ride now as suited him, with all his thoughts ahead, and there lacked then only one thing to complete his pleasure—he missed Ranjoor Singh.

It was not that the squadron would lack good leading. An English officer had taken Ranjoor Singh's place. It was the man he missed— the decent loyal gentleman who had worked untiringly to sweat a squadron into shape to Kirby's liking and never once presumed, nor had taken offense at criticism—the man who had been good enough to understand the ethics of an alien colonel, and to translate them for the benefit of his command. It is not easy for a Sikh to rise to the rank of major and lead a squadron for the Raj.

He counted Ranjoor Singh his friend, and he knew that Ranjoor Singh would have given all the rest of his life to ride away now for only one encounter on a foreign battle-field. Nothing, nothing less than the word of Ranjoor Singh himself, would ever convince him of the man's disloyalty. And he would have felt better if he could have shaken hands with Ranjoor Singh before going, since it seemed to be the order of the day that the Sikh should stay behind.

It did not seem quite the thing to be riding away to war with the best native officer in all India somewhere in Delhi on "special service"—whatever that might be.

He was given, as a rule, to smiling at any man who did his best. On any other day he would have very likely exchanged a joke with the bullock-man who labored so unavailingly to get the road cleared in a hurry. But to-day, since his thoughts were of Ranjoor Singh, he paid the man no attention; he had not even formed a mental picture of him by the time he passed the gate.

It was Warrington, cantering up from behind a minute or so later, who changed the color of the earth and sky.

"Did you recognize him, sir?"

"Whom?"

"Ranjoor Singh!"

"No! Where?"

"Not the bullock-man who blocked the road, but the man who ran out from behind the gate and straightened things out again. That man was Ranjoor Singh in mufti!"

"What makes you think so?"

"I recognized him. So did his squadron—look at them! They're riding like new men!"

Kirby looked, and there was no doubt about D Squadron.

"Is he there still?" he asked.

"I can see a man standing there—see him? Fellow in white between two bullock carts?"

Kirby pulled out to the roadside and let the regiment pass him. Then he cantered back. The man between the bullock carts had his back turned, and was gazing toward Delhi under his hand.

"Ranjoor Singh!" said Kirby, reining suddenly. "Is that you?"

"Uh?" The man faced about. He was no more Ranjoor Singh than he was Colonel Kirby.

"Where is the man who came from behind the gate to clear the road?"

The man pointed toward the gate. Inside, within the gloom of the gate itself, Kirby was certain he saw a Sikh who stood at the salute. He cantered to the gate, for he would have given a year's pay for word with Ranjoor Singh. But when he reached the gate the man was gone.

"And he promised he'd be there to lead his squadron when the blood runs," wondered Kirby.

"Now a trap," said the tiger, "is easy to spot," (Oh, jungli, be seated and listen!) "Some tempt you with live bait, and others do not;" (Oh, jungli, be leery and listen!) "The easiest sort to detect have a door— A box, with three walls and a roof and a floor— That the veriest, hungriest cub should ignore." (Oh, jungli, stop laughing and listen!) "This isn't a trap, as I'll show you, my friend." But the tiger fell into it. That is the end. (Oh, jungli, be loving and listen!)

YASMINI'S SONG.



CHAPTER X

Ranjoor Singh; on the trail of a murderer, shoved with his whole strength against a little door of the House-of-the-Eight-Half- brothers. It yielded suddenly. He shot in headlong, and the door slammed behind him. As he fell forward into pitch blackness he was conscious of shooting bolts behind and of the squeaking of a beam swung into place.

But, having served the Raj for more years than he wanted to remember, through three campaigns in the Himalayas, once against the Masudis, and once in China, he was in full possession of trained soldier senses. Darkness, he calculated instantly, was a shield to him who can use it, and a danger only to the unwary; and there are grades of wariness, just as there are grades of sloth.

Two men who thought themselves so wide awake as to be beyond the reach of government, each threw a noosed rope, and caught each other. Ranjoor Singh could not see the ropes, but he could hear the stifled swearing and the ensuing struggle; and an ear is as good as an eye in the dark.

Something—he never knew what—warned him to duck and step forward. He felt the whistle of a club that missed him by so little as to make the skin twitch on the back of his neck.

His right leg shot sidewise, and he tripped a man. In another second he had the club, and there was no measurable interval of time then before the darkness was a living miracle of blows that came from everywhere and missed nothing.

Three men went down, and Ranjoor Singh was in command of a situation whose wherefore and possibilities he could not guess until an electric torch declared itself some twenty feet away, at more than twice his height, and he stood vignetted in a circle of white light.

"The sahib proves a gentle guest!" purred a voice he thought he recognized. It was a woman's. "Has the sahib a pistol with him?"

Ranjoor Singh, cursing his own neglect of soldierly precaution, saw fit not to answer. A human arm reached like a snake into the ring of light. He struck at it with the club, and a groan announced that he had struck hard enough.

"Does the sahib think that the noise of a pistol would cause his friends to come? Is Ranjoor Singh ashamed? Speak, sahib! Is it well to break into a house and be surly with the hostess?"

Ranjoor Singh stepped backward, and the ring of light followed him, until he stood pressed against the teak door and could feel the heavy beam that ran up and down it, locked firmly above and below. He prodded over his head behind him with the club, trying to find what held the beam, and the ring of light lifted a foot or two, then five feet, until its center was on the center of the club's handle.

A pistol cracked and flashed then, from behind the light, and the club splintered. He dropped it, and the torch-light ceased, leaving him dazed, but not so dazed that he did not hear a man sneak up and carry the splintered club away. He followed after the man, for he knew now that he was in a narrow passage and no man could get by him to attack from behind.

But again the torch-light sought him out. Half-way to the foot of steep stairs that he could dimly outline he halted, for advance against hidden pistol-fire and dazzling light was futile.

"Look!" said the same soft, woman's voice. "Look, sahib! See, Ranjoor Singh! the hooded death! See the hooded death behind you!"

It was not her command that made him look. He knew better than to turn his head at an unseen woman's bidding in the dark. But he heard them hiss, and he turned to see four cobras come toward him, with the front third of their bodies raised from the floor and their hoods extended. He saw that a panel in the wooden wall had slid, and the last snake's tail was yet inside the gap. There was no need of a man to slip between him and the door!

"There are more in the wall, Ranjoor Singh! Will they follow thee up- stairs? See, they come! Step swiftly, for the hooded death is swift!"

The light went out again, and his ears were all he had to warn him of the snakes' approach—ears and imagination. Swift as a well launched charge of light cavalry, he leaped for the stairs and took them four at a time. He reached the top one sooner than he knew it. The torch flashed in his eyes, and he saw a pistol-mouth just beyond arm-reach.

"Stand, Ranjoor Singh!" said a voice that he felt sure he recognized. His eyes began to search beyond the light for glimpses of dim outline.

"Back, Ranjoor Singh! Back to the right—toward that door! In, through that door—so!"

He obeyed, since he knew now with whom he had to deal. There was no sense at all in taking liberties with Yasmini. He stepped into a bare, dark, teak-walled room, and she followed him, and she had scarcely closed the door at her back before another door opened at the farther end, and two of her maids appeared, carrying candle-lamps.

"What do you want with me?" demanded Ranjoor Singh.

"Nay! Did I invite the sahib?"

"I came about a murderer who entered by that door through which I came."

"To pay him the reward, perhaps?" she asked impudently.

"Is this thy house?" asked Ranjoor Singh.

"This is the House-of-the-Eight-Half-brothers, sahib."

"This is a hole where murderers hide! A man of mine was slain in the street below, and the murderer came in here. Where is he now?"

"He and the bigger fool who followed him," said Yasmini, poising herself like a nodding blossom and smiling like the promise of new love, as she paused to be insolent and let the insolence sink home, "are at my mercy!"

Ranjoor Singh did not answer, but she could draw no amusement from his silence, for his eye was unafraid.

"I am from the North, where the quality of mercy is thought weakness," she smiled sweetly.

"Who asks mercy? I was seen and heard to enter. There will be a hundred seeking me within an hour!"

"Sahib, within two hours there will be five thousand around this house, yet none will seek to enter! And they will find no murderer, though thou shalt see thy murderer. Come this way, sahib."

A whiff of warm wind might have blown her, so swiftly, lissomely she ran toward the other door, laughing back at him across her shoulder and leaving a trail of aromatic scent. The two maids held their candle-lanterns high, and, striding like a soldier, Ranjoor Singh followed Yasmini, not caring that the maids shut the heavy door behind him and bolted it. He argued to himself that he was as safe in one room as in another, and she as dangerous; also, that it made no difference in which room he might be when the squadron or his colonel missed him.

"Look, Ranjoor Singh! Look through that hole!"

There was plenty of light in this room, for there was a lantern in every corner. He could see that she was gazing through a hole in the wall at something that amused her, and she motioned to another hole eight feet away from it. He crossed a floor that was solid and age-old; no two planks of it were of even width or length, but none creaked.

At her invitation he looked through the little square hole she pointed out. And then, for the first time, he confessed surprise.

"Thou, Jagut Singh!" he exclaimed.

He stepped back, blinked to reassure himself, and stepped to the hole again. Back to back, tied right hand to right, left hand to left, so that their arms were crossed behind them, and lashed waist to waist, a trooper of D Squadron and the Afridi whom lie had kicked at Yasmini's sat on the floor facing opposite walls. Dumb misery was stamped on the Sikh's face, the despair of evaporated savagery on the Afridi's.

"Jagut Singh!" said the risaldar-major, louder this time; and the trooper looked up, almost as if hope had been that instant born in him.

"Jagut Singh!"

The trooper grinned. A white row of ivory showed between his black beard and mustache. He tried to look sidewise, but the rope that held him tight to the Afridi hurt his neck.

"I knew it, sahib!" he shouted. "I knew that one would come for me! This hill wildcat has fought until the ropes cut both of us; but take time, sahib! I can wait. Attend to the duty first. Only let him who comes bring water with him, for this is a thirsty place!"

Ranjoor Singh looked sidewise. He could see that Yasmini was absorbed in contemplation of her prisoners. Her little lithe form was pressed tightly against the wall, less than two yards away. He could guess, and he had heard a dozen times, that dancing had made her stronger than a panther and more swift. Yet he thought that if he had her in his arms he could crush those light ribs until she would yield and order her prisoner released. The trooper's confidence deserved immediate, not postponed, reward.

He watched for a minute. He could see that her bosom rose and fell regularly against the woodwork; she was all unconscious of her danger, he was sure of it. He changed his position, and she neither looked nor moved. He changed it again, so that his weight was all on his left foot; he was sure she had not noticed. Then he sprang.

He sprang sidewise, as a horse does that sees a snake by the roadside, every nerve and sinew keyed to the tightest pitch—eye, ear and instinct working together. And she, in the same second, turned to meet him smiling, with outstretched arms, as if she would meet him half-way and hug him to her bosom, only she stepped a pace backward, instead of forward as she had seemed to intend.

He landed where he had meant to, on the spot where she had stood. His left hand clutched at the wall, and a second too late he made a wild grab at the hole she had peered through, trying to get his fingers into it. What she had done he never knew, but the floor she had stood on yielded, and he heard her laugh as he slipped through the opening like a tiger into a pit-trap, and fell downward into blackness.