e moonlight
silvering their bayonets.

Well, most streets have two ends. So I walked forward, not
taking much trouble about concealment, since it was not easy to
walk silently. If the Sikh can't see his enemy he likes to fire
first and challenge afterwards. I preferred to be seen. The
sight of those uncompromising bayonets had changed my mind about
the choice of evils. The knife of a hardly probable assassin
seemed a wiser risk than the ready triggers of the Punjaub.
Half-way down the street Suliman tugged at my cloak.

"That is the place where my mother is," he said, pointing to a
narrow door on the left.

But I was taking no chances in that direction--not at that
moment. The little stone house was all in darkness. There were
no windows that I could see. No sound came from it. And farther
down the street there was a lamp burning, whose light spelled
safety from shots fired at the sound of foot-fall on suspicion.
I wanted that light between me and the Sikh platoon, yet did not
dare run for it, since that would surely have started trouble.
It is my experience of Sikhs that when they start a thing they
like to finish it. They are very good indeed at explanations
after the event.

The Sikhs must have seen us pass through the belt of gasoline
light, but they did not challenge, so I went forward more slowly,
with rather less of that creepy feeling that makes a man's spine
seem to belong to some one else. Toward its lower end the street
curved considerably, and we went about a quarter of a mile before
the glare of another light began to appear around the bend.

That was at a cross-street, up which I proposed to turn more or
less in the direction of the hotel. But I did nothing of the
sort. There was a cordon of Sikhs drawn across there, too, with
no British officer in sight to enforce discretion.

Come to think of it, I have always regarded a bayonet wound in
the stomach as the least desirable of life's unpleasantries.

So Suliman and I turned back. I decided to investigate that dark
little stone house, after all; for it occurred to me that, if
that was the centre of conspiracy, then Grim would certainly show
up there sooner or later and straighten out the predicament.
Have you ever noticed how hungry you get walking about aimlessly
in the dark, especially when you are sleepy in the bargain?
Suliman began to whimper for food, and although I called him a
belly on legs by way of encouragement he had my