ntured near, driving them out, crying: "This
is alone for the Pindaris!"

A powerful, whiskered jamadar pushed his way through the mob, throwing
men to the right and left with sweeps of his strong arm, and, reaching
the guard, was told that Amir Khan lay up in his room, murdered. Then
an _hazari_ (commander of five thousand) came running and pushed
through the throng that the full force of the tragedy held almost
silent.

The guard saluted, saying: "Commander Kassim, the Chief has been slain."

"How--who?"

"I know not, Commander."

"Who has passed the guard here?"

"But one, the Afghan, who was expected by the Chief. He went forth but
lately."

"A Patan!" Kassim roared. "Trust a woman and a snake but not a Patan."
He turned to the whiskered jamadar: "Quick, go you with men and bring
the Afghan." To another he said, "Command to enter from there"--his
hand swept the mob in front--"a dozen trusty _sowars_ and flood the
palace with them. Up, up; every room, every nook, every place of
hiding; under everything, and above everything, and through everything,
search. Not even let there be exemption of the seraglio--murder lurks
close to women at all times. Seize every servant that is within and
bind him; let none escape."

He swept a hand out toward the Pindaris in the street that were like a
pack of wolves: "Up the hill--surround the palace! and guard every
window and rat-run!"

The guard saluted, venturing: "Commander, none could have entered from
outside to do the foul deed."

"Liar! lazy sleeper!"--he smashed with his foot the _hookah_ that sat
on the marble floor, its long stem coiled like a snake--"While you
busied over such, and opium, one has slipped by."

He reached out a powerful hand and seized the shoulder of a Pindari and
jerked him to the step, commanding: "Stay here with this monkey of the
tall trees, and see that none pass. I go to the Chief. When the
Afghan comes have him brought up."

Hunsa had stood among the Pindaris, shoved hither and thither as they
surged back and forth. Once the flat of a _tulwar_ had smote him
across the back, but when he turned his face to the striker who
recognised him as a man of privilege, one of the amusers, he was
allowed to remain.

The startling cry, "The Chief has been murdered! the Sultan is dead!"
swept out over the desert sand that lay white in the moonlight, and the
night air droned with the hum of fifty thousand voices that was like
the song o