r my head if, as I suspected, he was merely gaining time
in order to take sure aim. I tried to see which end of the table
he was talking from, but he was hidden completely.

"Do you think you should go free, to perpetrate more cowardly
interference, after spoiling that well-laid plan? Hee-hee! You
poor fool! Busy-bodies such as you invariably overreach
themselves. Having tricked me two or three times, you thought,
didn't you? that you could draw me here to kill Scharnhoff, that
poor old sheep. You were careful, weren't you? to let Omar
Mahmoud go, in order that he might tell me how Scharnhoff had
turned witness against us. And the Sikhs followed Omar Mahmoud,
until Omar Mahmoud found me. And then they hunted me. Hee-hee!
Don't move! Was that the plan? Simultaneously then, being
yourself only a fool after all, you flatter me and underestimate
my intelligence. Hee-hee!

"You were right in thinking I would not submit to capture and
death without first wreaking vengeance. But vengeance on such a
sheep as Scharnhoff? With Major Jimgrim still alive? What
possessed you? Were you mad? I satisfied myself an hour ago
that Scharnhoff was the bait, which the redoubtable Major Jimgrim
would be watching. Perhaps I shall deal with Scharnhoff
afterwards--hee-hee!--who knows? Now--now shall we fight that
duel? Are you ready?"

I supposed that meant that he could not see me and had given up
hope of it. He would like to have me move first, so as to judge
my exact whereabouts by sound. I reached out very cautiously,
and rapped the muzzle of my pistol on the floor twice.

He fired instantly, three shots in succession. The bullets went
wild to my left and brought down showers of plaster from the
wall. I feared he might have seen me by the pistol-flash. I did
not fire back. There was no need. Something moved swiftly like
a black ghost through the open door. There was a thud--and the
ring of a steel swivel--and a scream.

"Has the sahib a match?" said a gruff voice that I thought
I recognized.

I was trembling--excitement, of course--only children and women
and foreigners ever feel afraid! It took me half a minute to
find the match box, and the other half to strike a light.

Narayan Singh was standing by the end of the table. He was
wiping blood off his bayonet with a piece of newspaper. He
looked cool enough to have carried the paper in his pocket for
that purpose. I got up, feeling ashamed to be see