"No, Sahib," replied Koda Bux, fingering at a blue silk handkerchief
that was tucked into his waist-band. "The message was of too great
importance to be trusted to a letter which might be lost, and so my
master trusted it to the soul of his servant."

"That's rather a strange way for one gentleman to send a message to
another in this country and in these days, Koda Bux," said Sir Reginald,
getting up from his chair at the writing-table and moving towards the
bell.

Instantly, with a swift sinuous movement, Koda Bux had passed before the
fireplace and put himself between Sir Reginald and the bell.

"The Sahib will not call his servants until he has heard the message,"
he said, not in the cringing tone of the servant, but in the
straight-spoken words of the soldier. Meanwhile, the fingers of his left
hand were almost imperceptibly drawing the blue handkerchief out of his
girdle.

Sir Reginald saw this, and a sudden fear streamed into his soul. His own
Indian experience told him that this man might be a Thug, and that if
so, a little roll of blue silk would be a swifter, deadlier, and more
untraceable weapon than knife or poison, and his thoughts went back to
the 28th of June, twenty-two years before.

"I am not going to be spoken to like that in my own house and by a
nigger!" he exclaimed, seeking to cover his fear by a show of anger. "I
don't believe in you or your message. If you have a letter from your
master, give it to me, if you haven't, I shan't listen to you. What
right have you to come here into my library pretending to have a message
from your master, when you haven't even a letter, or his card, or one
written word from him?"

"Illustrious," said Koda Bux, with a sudden change of manner, salaaming
low and moving backwards towards the door, "the slave of my master
forgot himself in the urgency of his message, which my lord, his friend,
has not yet heard."

There was an almost imperceptible emphasis on the word "friend" which
sent a little shiver through such rudiments of soul as Sir Reginald
possessed. He said roughly:

"Very well, then, if you have brought a message what is it? I can't
waste half the morning with you."

"The message is short, Sahib," replied Koda Bux, salaaming again, and
moving a little nearer towards the door. "I am to ask you what you did
at Simla two-and-twenty years ago this night--what you have done with
the Mem Sahib who was faithful to my lord's honour when you, dog and son