at the doorway. As
he entered, the fakir rose to his feet, and a glare of triumph lit his
eyes.

"A spy!" he cried in a whisper. "Allah protects the faithful."

"Shall it be a knife, holy one?" asked one of the men.

"Nay, nay," said another, "a knife means blood on the floor. And how
could we carry him from the lines? Within a little the gun will signal
for 'lights out,' and the gates will be closed. We could not carry a
dead man without being seen by the sentry. 'Tis easier to carry a man
alive than dead."

"But we cannot keep him here," said the third. "'Tis Ahmed, the child
who puts his elders to shame at man's work, and licks the boots of the
sahibs. Search will be made for him; the braggart Sherdil, who shares
his hut, will raise a cry when he is missed. This is evil work: he will
betray us."

"Listen to me," said the fakir. "When the gun fires I go. But I will
remain without, at the foot of the wall. When the night is far spent, do
you lift him and throw him over the wall. Then will I take him and cast
him into the river, and none will know."

"But the sentry!" said one of the men.

"Bah! has he eyes all round? The night is dark; none will see. Brothers,
he is a kafir; he is a Feringhi who has come among you to learn your
secrets and betray you. He shall die. So may all perish that stand in
the way of the faithful."

And then Ahmed knew that the fakir was in very truth his enemy, Minghal.
The voice, the glance of hate, the knowledge that he was an
Englishman--all proved that his first suspicion was just. At the fakir's
words one of the men spat upon him; then he was cast to the floor behind
a charpoy that lay on one side of the entrance. Another charpoy was on
the opposite side. It was near this that the conspirators had been
squatting. The charpoy behind which he had been flung concealed him from
the view of any one who should enter the doorway, and one of the men now
placed the little lamp on the floor near the end of the charpoy, so that
a shadow was cast on the place where Ahmed lay.

His hands and feet being tied, and his mouth gagged, the men felt free
to listen to the fakir as he told them their prisoner's history. Ahmed
felt that that history would soon come to an end. Even if a friend
should enter the hut, he was so well concealed that he might escape
observation. He had no means of giving an alarm; he saw no way of
escape: and when the lights were out and the fort was in darkness, it
would