door of the snuggery, where Justine had first listened to a lover's
sighs. "Poor girl! I wish she were here to-night!" tenderly mused the
sentimental rascal, as he waved away Ram Lal's bidding to a splendid
little supper.

"I came here to talk business, Ram, to-night" sternly said Hawke, who
had inwardly decided not to taste food or drink with the past master
of villainy. "He might give me a gentle push into the Styx," acutely
reflected the Major. "Sit down right there where I can see you," said
Hawke, his hand firmly grasping the revolver, as he indicated a corner
of the table, after satisfying himself that the shop door was locked. He
then quickly locked the garden door and pocketed both the keys.

"What do you want of me?" murmured Ram Lal, who had noted the
semi-hostile tone, and who clearly saw the butt of the revolver.

"I want to talk to you of this Johnstone matter," said the soldier,
ignoring all other reference to the "dear departed." This coolness
unsettled the wily jeweler, who trembled as Hawke laid a long red
pocketbook down on the table before him.

The wily scoundrel shivered when the Major, with his left hand, pushed
over to him five sets of Bills of Exchange for a thousand pounds each.
Ram Lal's eyes dropped under the brave villain's steady gaze, and he
slowly read the first paper. He well knew the drawer's writing:

DELHI, August 15, 1890.

L 1,000.

Thirty days after sight of this first of exchange (second and third
unpaid), pay to the order of Alan Hawke one thousand pounds sterling,
value received.

HUGH FRASER JOHNSTONE.

To Messrs. Glyn, Carr and Glyn, London.

"What do you wish me to do, Sahib?" tremblingly faltered the old usurer,
as he carefully noted the fifteen papers. A sinking at the heart told
him that he was in the power of the one man in India whom he knew to be
as merciless as himself, for a kindred spirit had fled when the drawer
of the Bills of Exchange died alone in the dark, his bubbling shriek
stopped by his heart's blood. The Major sternly said in an icy voice, as
he fixed his eyes full on his victim:

"I wish you to indorse, every one of those papers. I wish you to make
each one of them read five thousand pounds. You have done that trick
very neatly before, and to put the additional Crown duty stamps upon
them." Ram Lal had started up, but he sank back appalled as he looked
down the barrel of Hawke's revolver.

"Keep silence or I'll put a ball through your shoulde