down one of the corridors leading
from it, and the footman was already at one of the doors trying to open
it. It was locked. Garthorne hammered on it with his fists and shouted,
but there was no reply.

"I heard the library bell ring, sir," said Ambrose, "just as the front
door bell went--after that Indian person had been with Sir Reginald some
time."

"Never mind about that," said Garthorne; "run round to the windows, and
if any of them are open get in and unlock the door."

But before he had reached the hall door the library door was thrown
open. Koda Bux salaamed, and, pointing to the lifeless shape of Sir
Reginald, lying on the hearth-rug, he said to Sir Arthur:

"Protector of the poor, justice has been done. The enemy of thy house is
dead. Before he died he confessed his sin. Has not thy servant done
rightly?"

"You have done murder, Koda Bux," said Sir Arthur sternly, pushing him
aside and going to where Sir Reginald lay. He tried to lift him, but it
was no use. There was the mark of the roomal round his neck, the staring
eyes and the half-protruding tongue. Justice, from Koda Bux's point of
view, had been done. There was nothing more to do but to have him
carried up to his room and send for the police. Garthorne gripped hold
of Koda Bux, and called to one of the servants for a rope to tie him up
until the police came, but the Pathan twisted himself free with scarcely
an effort.

"There is no need for that, Sahib; I shall not run away," said Koda Bux,
drawing himself up and saluting Sir Arthur for the last time. "I came
here to give my life for the one I have taken, so that justice might be
done, and I have done it. In the next worlds and in the next lives we
may meet again, and then you will know that neither did I kill your
father nor die myself without good cause. Of the rest the gods will
judge."

He made a movement with his jaws and crunched something between his
teeth. They saw a movement of swallowing in his throat. A swift spasm
passed over his features; his limbs stiffened into rigidity, and as he
stood before them so he fell, as a wooden image might have done. And so
died Koda Bux the Pathan, loyal avenger of his master's honour.

For a few moments there was silence--every tongue chained, every eye
fixed by the sudden horror of the situation. Garthorne, roused by fear
and anger, for a swift instinct told him that Dora had not come to the
Abbey for nothing, was able to speak first. He was Sir R