Sahib, there is a worse thing to tell," said Mir Jan.

"Say on, then."

"Before they place the ladders against the cliff they will build a fire
of green wood so that the smoke will be blown by the wind into your
eyes. This will help to blind your aim. Otherwise, you never miss."

"That will assuredly be awkward, Mir Jan."

"It will, sahib. Soul of my father, if we had but half a troop with
us----"

But they had not, and they were both so intent on the conversation that
they were momentarily off their guard. Iris was more watchful. She
fancied there was a light rustling amidst the undergrowth beneath the
trees on the right. And she could hiss too, if that were the correct
thing to do.

So she hissed.

Jenks swarmed half way up the ladder.

"Yes, Iris?" he said.

"I am not sure, but I imagine something moved among the bushes behind
the house."

"All right, dear. I will keep a sharp look-out. Can you hear us
talking?"

"Hardly. Will you be long?"

"Another minute."

He descended and told Mir Jan what the miss-sahib said. The native was
about to make a search when Jenks stopped him.

"Here,"--he handed the man his revolver--"I suppose you can use this?"

Mir Jan took it without a word, and Jenks felt that the incident atoned
for previous unworthy doubts of his dark friend's honesty. The
Mahommedan cautiously examined the back of the house, the neighboring
shrubs, and the open beach. After a brief absence he reported all safe,
yet no man has ever been nearer death and escaped it than he during
that reconnaissance. He, too, forgot that the Dyaks were foxes, and
foxes can lie close when hounds are a trifle stale.

Mir Jan returned the revolver.

"Sahib," he said with another salaam, "I am a disgraced man, but if you
will take me up there with you, I will fight by your side until both my
arms are hacked off. I am weary of these thieves. Ill chance threw me
into their company: I will have no more of them. If you will not have
me on the rock, give me a gun. I will hide among the trees, and I
promise that some of them shall die to-night before they find me. For
the honor of the regiment, sahib, do not refuse this thing. All I ask
is, if your honor escapes, that you will write to Kurnal
I-shpence-sahib, and tell him the last act of Mir Jan, _naik_ in B
troop."

There was an intense pathos in the man's words. He made this
self-sacrificing offer with an utter absence of any motive save the old
tradition of d