de of him, and
two behind.

He was just answering a question from the Commander and was saying: "I
left your Chief with the Peace of Allah upon both our heads, for he
gripped my hand in fellowship, and said that we were two men. Why
should I slay one such who was veritably a soldier, who was a follower
of Mahomet?"

The man who had brought Barlow up to Amir Khan when he came for the
audience, said: "Commander, I left this one, the Afghan, here with the
Chief and took with me his sword and the short gun; he had no weapons."

"Inshalla! it was but a pretence," the Commander declared; "a pretence
to gain the confidence of the Chief, for he was slain with his own
knife. It was a Patan trick."

The Commander turned to the Afghan: "Why hadst thou audience with the
Chief alone and at night here--what was the mission?"

Barlow hesitated, a slight hope that might save his own life would be
to declare himself as a Sahib, and his mission; but he felt sure that
the Chief had been murdered because of this very thing, that somebody,
an agent of Nana Sahib, had waited hidden, had killed the Chief and
taken the paper. To speak of it would be to start a rumour that would
run across India that the British had negotiated with the Pindaris, and
if the paper weren't found there--which it wouldn't be--he wouldn't be
believed. Better to accept the roll of the dice as they lay, that he
had lost, and die as an Afghan rather than as an Englishman, a spy who
had killed their Chief.

"Speak, Patan," Kassim commanded; "thou dwellest overlong upon some
lie."

"There was a mission," Barlow answered; "it was from my own people, the
people of Sind."

"Of Sindhia?"

"No; from the land of Sind, Afghanistan. We ride not with the
Mahrattas; they are infidels, while we be followers of the true
Prophet."

"Thou art a fair speaker, Afghan. And was there a sealed message?"

"There was, Commander Sahib."

"Where is it now?"

"I know not. It was left with Amir Khan."

There was a hush of three seconds. Then Kassim, whose eye had searched
the room, saw the iron box. "This has a bearing upon matters," he
declared; "this affair of a written message. Open the box and see if
it is within," he commanded a Pindari.

"How now, woman," for the Gulab had stepped forward; "what dost thou
here--ah! there was talk of a message from the Chief. It might be, it
might be, because,"--his leonine face, full whiskered, the face of a
wild rider, a wa