or never passed him without an anxious glance. For
there were the signs of death upon his face.

"The fourth week!" said Lynes. "Is it, by George? Well, the siege won't
last much longer now. The Sirkar don't leave its servants in the lurch.
That's what these hill-tribes never seem to understand. How is Travers?"
he asked of the Doctor.

Travers, a subaltern of the North Surrey Light Infantry, had been shot
through the thigh in the covered waterway to the river that morning.

"He's going on all right," replied the Doctor. "Travers had bad luck. It
must have been a stray bullet which slipped through that chink in the
stones. For he could not have been seen--"

As he spoke a cry rang clearly out. All six men looked upwards
through the open roof to the clear dark sky, where the stars shone
frostily bright.

"What was that?" asked one of the six.

"Hush," said Luffe, and for a moment they all listened in silence, with
expectant faces and their bodies alert to spring from their chairs. Then
the cry was heard again. It was a wail more than a cry, and it sounded
strangely solitary, strangely sad, as it floated through the still air.
There was the East in that cry trembling out of the infinite darkness
above their heads. But the six men relaxed their limbs. They had
expected the loud note of the Pathan war-cry to swell sonorously, and
with intervals shorter and shorter until it became one menacing and
continuous roar.

"It is someone close under the walls," said Luffe, and as he ended a Sikh
orderly appeared at the entrance of a passage into the courtyard, and,
advancing to the table, saluted.

"Sahib, there is a man who claims that he comes with a message from
Wafadar Nazim."

"Tell him that we receive no messages at night, as Wafadar Nazim knows
well. Let him come in the morning and he shall be admitted. Tell him that
if he does not go back at once the sentinels will fire." And Luffe nodded
to one of the younger officers. "Do you see to it, Haslewood."

Haslewood rose and went out from the courtyard with the orderly. He
returned in a few minutes, saying that the man had returned to Wafadar
Nazim's camp. The six men resumed their meal, and just as they ended it a
Pathan glided in white flowing garments into the courtyard and bowed low.

"Huzoor," he said, "His Highness the Khan sends you greeting. God has
been very good to him. A son has been born to him this day, and he sends
you this present, knowing that you wil