asily, but
I did not know that the back opened with a sharp click, and the noise
startled me and woke your father. In an instant he was out of bed and
seized me by the throat. Now, he was a much stronger man than I was. I
struggled in vain. I felt that in a moment I should become insensible;
my vow and my duty to the god flashed across me, and scarce knowing what
I did, I drew a little dagger I always carried, and struck blindly.
He fell, and I fell beside him. For a time I was insensible. When I
recovered I was seized with the bitterest remorse that I had killed one
I loved, but I seemed to hear the voice of the god saying, 'You have
done well, Ramoo. I am your great master, and you are bound to my
service.'

"I got up almost blindly, felt in the cabinet, and found a coin and a
piece of paper, and a feeling of exultation came over me that, after
nearly twenty years, I should succeed in carrying out my vow and taking
his bracelet back to the god. I descended the ladder, crept in the back
door by which I had come out, went up to my room, where I had kept a
light burning, and examined my treasures. Then I saw that all had been
in vain. They were doubtless a key to the mystery, but until a clew was
given they were absolutely useless. I sat for hours staring at them. I
would have gone back and replaced them in the cabinet and left all as
it had been before, but I dared not enter the room again. The next day I
heard you say that you suspected that the talk with your father had been
overheard, and that the man who had earlier in the evening before shot
at him had returned, and while listening had heard something said about
the hiding place, and thought that he would find some sort of treasure
there. I thought that in the talk your father might have told you how
to use these things, though I had not caught it, and it was therefore
important that you should have them back again, so I went into the room
after the inquest was over, and placed the things in their hiding place
again.

"Then, thinking it over, I determined to leave your service. You would
be trying to find the treasure, and I must watch you, and this I could
not do as long as I was a house servant; so I came up to London, and you
thought I had sailed for India, but I did not go. I hired four Lascars,
men of my own religion, and paid them to watch every movement that you
made, to see where you visited and where you went. I paid them well,
and they served me well; i