somewhat curious circumstance that nothing whatever was missing from
the personal effects of the Quains, forced him to make an explanation.
For his own belongings had been rifled and the bronze box alone
abstracted--still preserving its secret.

In its place Amber found a soiled slip of note-paper inscribed with the
round, unformed handwriting of the babu: "Pardon, sahib. A mistake has
been made. I seek but to regain that which is not yours to possess.
There will be naught else taken. A thousand excuses from your hmbl.
obt. svt., Behari Lal Chatterji."




CHAPTER III

MAROONED


A cry in the windy dusk; a sudden, hollow booming overhead; a vision of
countless wings in panic, sketched in black upon a background of dulled
silver; two heavy detonations and, with the least of intervals, a
third; three vivid flashes of crimson and gold stabbing the purple
twilight; and then the acrid reek of smokeless drifting into Amber's
face, while from the sky, where the V-shaped flock had been, two
stricken bundles of blood-stained feathers fell slowly, fluttering....

Honking madly, the unscathed brethren of the slain wheeled abruptly
and, lashed by the easterly gale, fled out over the open sea,
triangular formation dwindling rapidly in the clouded distances.