room huddled up as unclean things in the house there; they drink and
make merry far into the night, and a woman veiled and in European garb
comes to them and drinks with them sometimes--and sometimes a man of
her kind with her; and they speak a tongue that is not the tongue of our
people; yet have I seen them go forth into the city and do homage as we
to the sacred son."

Cleek sucked in his breath and, twitching round, stared at the dim
figure leaning forward in the dim light.

"By George!" he said to himself; "if I know anything, I ought to know
the slouch and the low-sunk head of the Apache! And the woman
comes!--And a man comes!--And there are five lacs of rupees! I wonder! I
wonder! But no--she wouldn't come here, to a place like this, if she had
ventured back into England and had called some of the band over to help.
She'd go to the old spot--to the old haunt where she and I used to lie
low and laugh whilst the police were hunting for me. She'd go there, I'm
sure, to the old Burnt Acre Mill, where, if you were 'stalked,' you
could open the sluice gates and let the Thames and the mill stream rush
in and meet, and make a hell of whirling waters that would drown a fish.
She would go there if it were she. And yet--it is an Apache: I swear it
is an Apache!"

He turned and looked back at Arjeeb Noosrut, then raised his hand and
brushed it down the back of his head, which was always the sign "Wait!"
to Dollops--and then spoke as calmly as he could.

"Brother, I will go in and break bread and eat salt with thee," he said.
"But I may do no more, for to-night I am in haste."

"Come then," the man answered; and taking him by the hand, led him in
and up to a room at the back of the second storey, where, hot as the
night was, the windows were closed and a woman squatted before a lighted
brasier, was dripping the contents of an oil cruse over the roasting
carcass of a young kid.

"It is to shut out the sounds of the vile infidel orgies from the house
adjoining," explained Arjeeb Noosrut, as Cleek walked to the tightly
closed window and leant his forehead against it. "Yet, if the heat
oppresses thee--"

"It does," interposed Cleek, and leant far out into the darkness as
though sucking in the air when the sash was raised and the thing which
had been only a dim babel of wordless sounds a moment before, became now
the riotous laughter and the ribald comments of men upon the verses of
a comic song which one of their number