f knowing nothing but the speaking of truth; I
have heard some laugh at this, accounting it easy to circumvent an
enemy when one has knowledge of all his intentions, but truth is
strength. We have faith in children because they have not yet learned
the art of a lie. In two days, Captain Sahib, thou wilt be called to
an audience." He rose from his chair, and, with a hand to his forehead
said: "Salaam, Sahib. May the protection of Allah be upon you!"

"Salaam, Chief," Barlow answered, and he held out a hand with a boyish
frankness that caused the Pindari to grasp it, and the two stood, two
men looking into each other's eyes.

"Go thou now, Sahib; thou art a man. Go alone and with quiet, for I
would view this message and put it in yonder strong box before others
enter."

CHAPTER XXI

When Captain Barlow had gone Amir Khan took up the message and read it.
Once he chuckled, for it was in his Oriental mind that the deceiving of
Barlow as to his knowledge of writing was rather a joke. Once as he
read the heavy silk _purdah_ of the door swayed a little at one side as
if a draught of wind had shifted it and an evil face appeared in the
opening.

Presently he rose from his chair, took the lamp in one hand and the
paper in the other, and crossed to the iron box in a far corner of the
room. He set the flickering light upon the floor, and dropping to his
knees, drew from his waistband a silver chain, at the end of which were
his seal and keys. His broad shoulders blanked the tiny cone of light,
and behind through a marble fretwork, a delicate tracery of lotus
flowers that screened the window, trickled cold shafts of moonlight
that fell upon something evil that wriggled across the white and black
slabs of marble from beneath the door curtain. The moonlight glistened
the bronze skin of the silent, crawling thing that was a huge snake, or
a giant centipede; it was even like a square-snouted, shovel-headed
_mugger_ that had crept up out of the slimy river that circled
sluggishly the eastern wall of the palace.

Once as Amir Khan fitted a key in the lock he checked and knelt, as
silent, as passive as a bronze Buddha, listening; and the creeping
thing was but a blur, a shadow without movement, silent. Then he
raised the lid of the box and paused, holding it with his right hand,
the flickering light upon his bronze face showing a smile as his eyes
dwelt lovingly upon the gold and jewels within.

And again the thing