was swung wide and slammed shut. A blast of frosty air and a flurry of
snow swept across the room. And against the door there leaned a man
puffing for breath and coughing spasmodically--a gross and monstrous
bulk of flesh, unclean and unwholesome to the eye, attired in an
extravagant array of coloured garments, tawdry silks and satins
clinging, sodden, to his ponderous and unwieldy limbs.

"The babu!" cried Amber unconsciously; and was rewarded by a flash of
recognition from the coal-black, beady, evil eyes of the man.

But for that involuntary exclamation the tableau held unbroken for a
space; Rutton standing transfixed, the torn halves of the cigarette
between his fingers, his head well up and back, his stare level,
direct, uncompromising, a steady challenge to the intruder; the babu
resting with one shoulder against the door, panting stertorously and
trembling with the cold and exposure he had undergone, yet with his
attention unflinchingly concentrated upon Rutton; and, finally, Amber,
a little out of the picture and quite unconsidered of the others, not
without a certain effect as of a supernumerary standing in the wings
and watching the development of the drama.

Then, demanding Amber's silence with an imperative movement of his
hand, Rutton spoke. "Well, babu?" he said quietly, the shadow of a
bitter and weary smile curving his thin, hard lips.

The Bengali moved a pace or two from the door, and plucked nervously at
the throat of his surtout, finally managing to insert one hand in the
folds of silk across his bosom.

"I seek," he said distinctly in Urdu, and not without a definite note