have in time of trouble?

Could he have died thinking this? If so, he must now know the truth, if
the Parsons were right, those unconvincing very-human Parsons of like
passions, and pretence of unlike passions. Could his friend be dead, his
friend whom he had so loved and admired? And yet he was a murderer--and
he had murdered ... _her_....

Captain Michael Malet-Marsac leant against a tree and was violently
sick.

Curse the weak frail body that was failing him in his hour of need! It
had never failed him in battle nor in athletic struggle. Why should it
weaken now. He _would_ see his friend, and bear himself as a man, to
help him in his dreadful hour.

Would that scoundrel never come? He was the one who should be hanged.

A clatter of hoofs behind, and Malet-Marsac turned to see the City
Magistrate trot across the road from the open country. He drew out his
watch accusingly and as a torrent of reproach rose to his white parched
lips, he saw that the time was--exactly quarter to seven.

"'Morning, Marsac," said the City Magistrate as he swung down from the
saddle. "You're looking precious blue about the gills."

"'Morning, Wellson," replied the other shortly.

To the City Magistrate a hanging was no more than a hair-cut, a neither
pleasing nor displeasing interlude, hindering the doing of more
strenuous duties; a nuisance, cutting into his early-morning
report--writing and other judicial work. He handed his reins to an
obsequious sepoy, eased his jodhpores at the knee, and rang the bell.

The grille-cover slid back, a dusky face appeared behind the bars and
scrutinized the visitors, the grille was closed again and the tiny door
opened. Malet-Marsac stepped in over the foot-high base of the door-way
and found himself in a kind of big gloomy strong-room in which were
native warders and a jailer with a bunch of huge keys. On either side of
the room was an office. Following Wellson to a large desk, on which
reposed a huge book, he wrote his name, address, and business,
controlling his shaking hand by a powerful effort of will.

This done, and the entrance-door being again locked, bolted, and barred,
the jailer led the way to another pair of huge gates opposite the pair
through which they had entered, and opened a similar small door therein.
Through this Malet-Marsac stepped and found himself, light-dazzled, in
the vast enclosure of Gungapur Jail, a small town of horribly-similar
low buildings, painfully regular s