f hidden between the pages--and scattered all about the
place. I camped in the ruins, and Sher Singh came to see me twice. He
talked to me like a man and a brother, pointed out how important it was
for him to find the treasure, what a guarantee of peace it would be,
and how he was obviously the rightful owner now that his father and
brother were dead. I agreed with him in everything, but declined
respectfully to say whether I knew where it was or not. When he
proceeded to threats, I told him that he must think me as big a fool as
I was beginning to consider him. I was not going to tell him whether I
knew the secret, because if I did know it, he would at once begin to
make things very unpleasant for me, and if I didn't, he might kill me
as useless. On the other hand, he could not proceed to extremities
while he was still uncertain, because if I knew the hiding-place, he
would have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, and if I didn't,
he would have thrown away uselessly his one chance of placating Antony.
That was just when Nisbet was beginning to thunder at the gates of
Agpur--or rather, a good way off them--so it appealed to him. Of
course the flaw in the argument was that if he knew his business, his
torturer might contrive to extract the answer to the question, and the
secret, without killing me, but I had to treat that possibility as
absolutely non-existent. Still, he found out the secret at last."

"Bob!" cried Gerrard anxiously.

"Sold again. This was how he did it. After dogging me all over the
place, trying to discover by my face where the treasure might be
hidden, they hit upon a new plan, by which, if the worst came to the
worst, they could produce my body quite free from marks of violence,
and so satisfy Antony. It was a fiendish thing, Hal. As soon as ever
I went to sleep, day or night, they woke me up, and asked me if I knew
where the treasure was. I stood it for two days and nights, but if it
had gone on, I swear to you I must have given in; I was pretty near mad
then. But curiously enough, Sher Singh discovered the treasury for
himself in an odd sort of way. You know the great tank where the lotus
grows? Well, one of Sher Singh's ladies brought some gold-fish with
her from Adamkot and turned them into it. The fish all died--change of
diet, I suppose, but she swore that the deaf and dumb boatman had
killed them. It was clearly a case of 'Off with his head!' for the
poor wretch coul