we are stopped it might be observed."

"Take the dead," Sookdee commanded the Bagrees; "lay them out; take
down the tents that are over the pits, and by that time I will be there
to count these dead things in the way of surety that not one has
escaped with the tale.

"Come," he said to Hunsa, "together we will go to the iron box and open
it; then there can be no suspicion that the men of Alwar have been
defrauded."

Hunsa turned malignant eyes upon Sookdee, but, keys in hand, strode
toward the tent.

Sookdee, thrusting in the fire a torch made from the feathery bark of
the _kujoor_ tree, followed.

Hunsa kneeling before the iron box was fitting the keys into the double
locks. Then he drew the lids backward, and the two gasped at a glitter
of precious stones that lay beneath a black velvet cloth Hunsa stripped
from the gems.

Sookdee cried out in wonderment; and Hunsa, slobbering gutturals of
avarice, patted the gems with his gorilla paws. He lifted a large
square emerald entwined in a tracery of gold, delicate as the
criss-cross of a spider's web, and held it to his thick lips.

"A bribe for a princess!" he gloated. "Take you this, Sookdee, and
hide it as you would your life, for a gift to the son of the Peshwa,
who, methinks, is behind the Dewan in this, we will be men of honour.