wn it, for
it is not agreeable to be chuckled at when you are hungry,
sleepy, and in a trap. I know just how trapped animals feel.

But then it spoke in good plain English; and you could not
mistake the voice.

"That's what comes of suiting yourself, doesn't it! Place
plugged at both ends, and nowhere to go but there and back!
Thanks for tipping off Narayan Singh--you see, we were all ready.
Here's a pass that'll let you out--catch!"

He threw down a piece of white paper, folded.

"Show that to the Sikhs at either end. Now beat it, while the
going's good. Leave Suliman there. I shall want him when he has
had his sleep out. Say: hadn't you better change your mind
about coming back too soon from that joy ride? Haven't you had
enough of this? The next move's dangerous."

"Is it my choice?" I asked.

"We owe you some consideration."

"Then I'm in on the last act."

"All right. But don't blame me. Turner will give you orders.
Get a move on."

I lowered Suliman's head gently from my knee on to a nice
comfortable corner of the stone gutter, and went up-street to
interview the Sikhs. It was rather like a New York Customs
inspection, after your cabin steward has not been heavily enough
tipped, and has tipped off the men in blue by way of distributing
the discontent. I showed them the safe-pass Grim had scribbled.
They accepted that as dubious preliminary evidence of my right to
be alive, but no more. I was searched painstakingly and
ignominiously for weapons. No questions asked. Nothing taken
for granted. Even my small change was examined in the moonlight,
coin by coin, to make sure, I suppose, that it wouldn't explode
if struck on stone. They gave everything back to me, including
my underwear.

A bearded non-commissioned officer entered a description of me in
a pocket memorandum book. If his face, as he wrote it, was
anything to judge by he described me as a leper without a
license. Then I was cautioned gruffly in an unknown tongue and
told to "imshi!" It isn't a bad plan to "imshi" rather quickly
when a Sikh platoon suggests your doing it. I left them standing
all alone, with nothing but the empty night to bristle at.

The rest of that night, until half-an-hour before dawn was a
half-waking dream of discomfort and chilly draughts in the mouth
of the hotel arcade, where I sat and watched the spies, and they
watched me. The third man was presumably still sleeping in the
mosque, but it