ered the barrack-room. It was useless. Ashraf Khan had just
died.

The crowd fell back in a wide circle to let the two hospital orderlies
bring up the stretcher for Wargrave and, as they did, left a group of
men standing isolated in the centre. All of these were armed, except one
whose hands were pinioned behind his back. His head was bare, his face
bruised and bleeding, and his uniform nearly torn off his body. It
needed no telling that he was the murderer.

Miss Benson walked up to him with fierce eyes.

"You dog!" she cried bitterly in Urdu.

The man who had smiled defiantly when the hands of his raging comrades
were seeking to tear the life out of his body and had shouted out his
crime in their faces, cowered before the anger in the flaming eyes of
this frail girl. He shrank back between his guards. The sepoys looking
on howled like hungry wolves and, as Mrs. Dermot drew the girl back,
made a rush for the murderer. The men of the guard faced them with
levelled bayonets and ringed their prisoner round; and the sepoys fell
back sullenly.

Suddenly a shrill voice cried in Hindustani:

"Make way! Make way there! What has happened?"

The circle of men gapped and through the opening came Major Hunt,
white-faced, wasted, shaking with fever and clad only in pyjamas and a
great coat and with bare feet thrust into unlaced shoes. He staggered
feebly in among them, revolver in hand.

"Heaven and Earth! Is Wargrave dead?" he cried and tottered towards the
stretcher.

Suddenly the pistol dropped from his shaking hand and he fell forward on
the stones before Macdonald could catch him.

"This is madness," muttered the doctor. "It may kill him. I hoped he
wouldn't hear the alarm."

"Bring him to my house too," said Mrs. Dermot.

Another stretcher was fetched, the Major lifted tenderly into it, and
the sad procession started, the sepoys falling back silently to make
way.

Major Hunt having been put to bed in one of the guest-rooms of the
Political Officer's house, Macdonald, with the aid of the subaltern's
servant, undressed Wargrave and examined his injuries, Noreen holding a
basin for him while Muriel, shuddering, carried away the blood-tinged
water and brought fresh. The shot-wound, though severe, was not
necessarily dangerous, and the bullet had not lodged in him. The doctor
was relieved to find that the bayonet had not penetrated deeply but had
only glanced along a rib, tearing the intercostal muscles and inflic