e comes Ibrahim."

"I caught him just outside the trees, Sahib. He will strangle no more
travellers."

"Well, what had we better do?" asked Surajah.

"I should say we had better make off, as fast as we can. Of course, if
we were really traders, able to prove who we are, we should go back to
the town and report the affair; but as we can't do that, we had better
be moving on at once, before any other party of travellers comes up.
That was why, when we had killed several of them, I was anxious that
none should get away, for they might have gone and accused us of
slaughtering their companions."

"That would be too unlikely a story to be believed. No one would
credit that three men would attack twelve."

"But there would be no one to prove that there were only three. The
fellows would naturally swear that there were a score of us, and that,
after murdering their companions, the rest made off with the booty.

"Ibrahim, load the pack animals, at once. We will saddle the horses.

"I think, Surajah, we had better leave everything just as it is. It is
now getting on for the afternoon. It is likely enough that no other
travellers will enter the grove today. By tomorrow, at the latest,
someone will come in, and will of course go and report at once, in
Bangalore, what he has found; and they will send out here to examine
into it. When they find that the men have all fallen, sword in hand,
that two of them are evidently Stranglers, and that their girdles have
not been searched, nor the packs on their horses opened, it will be
seen that it was not the work of robbers. I don't suppose they will
know what to make of it, but I should think they would most likely
conclude that these men have been attacked by some other party, and
that it is a matter of some feud or private revenge--though, even
then, the fact that the bodies have not been searched for valuables,
or the baggage or animals carried off, will beat them altogether."

By this time, the horses were ready for the start, and after looking
up and down the long, straight road, to see that no one was in sight,
they issued from the wood and continued their journey. Being anxious,
now, to get away as far as possible from the scene of the struggle,
instead of going on to Magree as they had intended, they turned off by
the first country road on the left-hand side, and made for Savandroog,
which they could see towering up above the plain. When within three
miles of it, they halted