roused Mrs. Ballantyne's ayah and bade her wake her mistress. The ayah
went into Mrs. Ballantyne's room and found her mistress sound asleep. She
waked her up and told her what had happened. Stella Ballantyne said not a
word. She got out of bed, and flinging on some clothes went into the
outer tent, where the servants were standing about the body. Stella
Ballantyne went quite close to it and looked down upon the dead man's
face for a long time. She was pale, but there was no shrinking in her
attitude--no apprehension in her eyes.

"He has been killed," she said at length; "telegrams must be sent at
once: to Ajmere for a doctor, to Bombay, and to His Highness the
Maharajah."

Baram Singh salaamed.

"It is as your Excellency wills," he said.

"I will write them," said Stella quietly. And she sat down at her own
writing-table there and then.

The doctor from Ajmere arrived during the day, made an examination and
telegraphed a report to the Chief Commissioner at Ajmere. That report
contained the three significant points which Repton had enumerated to
Thresk, but with some still more significant details. The bullet which
pierced Captain Ballantyne's heart had been fired from Mrs. Ballantyne's
small rook-rifle, and the exploded cartridge was still in the breech. The
rifle was standing up against Mrs. Ballantyne's writing-table in a corner
of the tent, when the doctor from Ajmere discovered it. In the second
place, although Ballantyne was found in the open, there was a patch of
blood upon the carpet within the tent and a trail of blood from that spot