"He awoke most suddenly, and at not much noise."

"For that reason I know he slept, sahib. Had he been pretending, he
would have wakened slowly."

"Thou art no idiot!" said Mahommed Gunga. "Wait here until I return,
and lie a few lies if any ask thee why we six came together, and of
what we spoke!"

Then he mounted and rode off slowly, picking his way through the throng
much more cautiously and considerately than his relatives had done,
though not, apparently, because he loved the crowd. He used some
singularly biting insults to help clear the way, and frowned as though
every other man he looked at were either an assassin or--what a good
Mohammedan considers worse--an infidel. He reached the long brick
wall at last--broke into a canter--scattered the pariah dogs that
were nosing and quarreling about the corpse of the Maharati, and drew
rein fifteen minutes later by the door of the tiny school place that
Miss McClean had entered.




CHAPTER III


For service truly rendered, and for duty dumbly done--
For men who neither tremble nor forget--
There is due reward, my henchman. There is honor to be won.
There is watch and ward and sterner duty yet.