infernally dangerous thing. On the one side there's Salak the great
national leader, Salak the deliverer, Salak professing from his prison in
Calcutta that he has never used any but the most legitimate
constitutional means to forward his propaganda. And here on the other is
Salak in his garden-chair amongst the burglars. Not a good thing to
possess--this photograph, Mr. Thresk. Especially because it's the only
one in existence and the negative has been destroyed. So Salak's friends
are naturally anxious to get it back."

"Do they know you have it?" Thresk asked.

"Of course they do. You had proof that they knew five minutes ago when
that brown arm wriggled in under the tent-wall."

Ballantyne's fear returned upon him as he spoke. He sat shivering; his
eyes wandered furtively from corner to corner of the great tent and came
always back as though drawn by a serpent to the floor by the wall of the
tent. Thresk shrugged his shoulders. To dispute with Ballantyne once more
upon his delusion would be the merest waste of time. He took up the
photograph again.

"How do you come to possess it?" he asked. If he was to serve his host in
the way he suspected he would be asked to, he must know its history.

"I was agent in a state not far from Poona before I came here."

Thresk agreed.

"I know. Bakuta."