d against
Kathlyn alone, but against all of them. But for her eagerness and
subsequent warning some of them would have been dead at this moment.

"Sahib, it would be better to make camp on the other side of the ford.
The Mem-sahib is weak from the shock and might collapse if we
proceeded."

"I leave everything to you, Ahmed. But is there not some place farther
below where the water does not run so fast?"

"Ramabai will know."

But Ramabai knew only the bridge. They would have to investigate and
explore the bank. Half an hour's journey--rather a difficult
one--brought them to still and shallow water. Here they crossed and
made camp beyond in a natural clearing. They erected the small tent
for Kathlyn, inside of which she changed her clothes, drank her tea and
lay down to sleep.

"What does Ahmed think?" asked Bruce anxiously.

"That we are being followed by some assassins hired by our friends, the
priests."

"Colonel, let us make straight for the seaport and let this damnable
bushel of trinkets stay where it is," urged Bruce, the lover.

"That is not possible now," replied Ramabai. "We can now reach there
only by the seacoast itself, or return to the desert and journey over
the old trail. We must go on."

The colonel smoked his pipe moodily. He was pulled between necessity
and desire. He had come to Asia for this filigree basket, and he
wanted it, with a passion which was almost miserly. At one moment he
silently vowed to cast the whole thing into the sea, and at the next
his fingers would twitch and he would sigh.

Sometimes it seemed to him that there was some invisible force working
in him, drawing and drawing him against the dictates of his heart. He
had experienced this feeling back in California, and had fought against
it for weeks, without avail. And frequently now, when alone and
undisturbed, he could see the old guru, shaking with the venom of his
wrath, the blood dripping from his lacerated fingers, which he shook in
the colonel's face flecking it with blood. A curse. It was so. He
must obey that invincible will; he must go on and on.

His pipe slipped from his fingers and his head fell upon his knees; and
thus Kathlyn found him.

"Let him sleep, Mem-sahib," warned Ahmed from across the fire. "He has
been fighting the old guru."

"What?" Kathlyn whispered back. "Where?"

Ahmed smiled grimly and pointed toward his forehead.

"Is there really such evil, Ahmed?"

"Evil beget