, and it seemed to Gerrard that his tanned face
paled ever so little as he read. Then he looked up sharply at the
messenger, whose eyes were fixed eagerly upon him.

"Sit down in the corner there, and wait until this case is finished,"
he said. "Hal, I daresay you will like to look at this." He passed
the letter lightly to Gerrard, but gave his fingers a warning grip
under cover of the paper.

[1] Inflated skins.

[2] Perfect leisure.

[3] Justice!

CHAPTER XVII.

THE ISSUES OF AN AWFUL MOMENT.

The letter was written roughly in pencil on a large sheet of rough and
discoloured paper:--

"To Lieutenant Robert Charteris, at Dera Gauleeb Khan or wherever he
may be.

"MY DEAR CHARTERIS,--I am sorry to say that the fat's in the fire at
last. This morning the Rajah invited us to go out with him to his
garden-house, but did not send an elephant for us, as we expected.
However, we rode to meet him, with a small escort. Honestly, I cannot
tell whether he is to blame for what happened, or not, but at the
beginning it certainly looked like an accident. There was a certain
amount of confusion when we met on the way to the city gate, and the
respective escorts found some difficulty in clearing a path through the
crowds. Suddenly a wild fanatic of some sort--an Akaulee I should
say--dashed at me from behind with a sword, and fairly knocked me off
my horse. I have a cut on the head, but my hat turned the blade.
There was a horrid tumult, and soldiers and people were pressed this
way and that, forcing Cowper away from me. I got two or three more
blows as I lay on the ground, but one of our horsemen dragged me to my
feet. I saw that Sher Sing's hotties had turned tail and were in full
retreat, but it did not occur to me he was leaving us to our fate until
his horsemen charged back through the crowd and made straight for
Cowper. He was cut down in an instant, and I saw them hacking at him
before I could rally the escort. When we got through to him things
looked pretty bad, for the horsemen withdrew only to come down on us
afresh, and the crowd were siding with them, while all sorts of
missiles began to rain from the roofs. Then old Sudda Sookhee turned
up and threw himself into the breach--ordered the troops back,
harangued the mob, and took us up on his own hotty. He thought it
unsafe for us to go back to the Residency, in which I quite agreed with
him, in view of the attitude of Sher Sing and his