w that it had come to her she
was afraid.

Sudden cessation of movement roused her; and the mate, turning his
head, spoke with respectful urgency.

"Protector of the Poor, it is not well to go farther. Behold the swift
going of the sun. Before your servants can reach the bungalow there
will be no more light, and it is against orders----The Sahib will make
angry talk."

Evelyn did not follow the whole of this appeal; but the man's anxiety
was evident. She caught the words "Sahib" and "angry" with an inward
shudder; she had endured enough of the Sahib's anger for one day, and
her own common-sense told her that she had behaved foolishly.

Even outlying bungalows were no longer in sight. A boundary pillar
gleamed ghostlike a few hundred yards ahead. The last rim of the sun
had already slipped behind the hills. Their harsh peaks black against
a sky of faint amber, had a threatening look; and darkness was racing
up out of the east. The mate was right. It would be upon them almost
before they could reach the bungalow; and to be out after sunset was
strictly against the rules of the station.

Sudden terror clutched her; a nameless dread of the country--of the
natives--which she had never been able to shake off; a paralysing
sense that she was alone in their midst--alone on the verge of night.

Fear unsteadied her voice as she answered the man. "Turn, turn at
once, and go quickly,--run; the Sahib will give _jacksheesh_--run!"

But before they could obey, a white figure sprang up from behind a
cluster of rocks. Quick as thought followed a flash, a report, a
heart-piercing scream; and the men, with a cry of "Ghazi! Ghazi!"
unceremoniously set down their mistress and fled.

The fanatic fled also, certain of a passport into Paradise; and as
Evelyn Desmond fell back among her cushions, a shadow, that had not
been there before, crept slowly across the shoulder of her muslin
dress. The oncoming darkness mattered nothing to her now; and she
herself, a mere atom of life, blown out like a candle, mattered less
than nothing to the desert and the imperturbable hills.

But justice does not invariably tarry. The arm of the Lord is not
shortened, though in these days of omniscience man has a larger faith
in his own; and the Ghazi, heading post-haste through the dusk plunged
unwittingly into a group of villagers and cattle returning home.

A short scuffle ensued, shouts and the tramping of feet--sounds which
brought the flying jhamp