iend's
clasp. "Let me go! Let me go!"

"Where to?" asked Noreen, holding the frenzied girl with all her
strength.

"To him. He's dead. Didn't you hear? He's dead. I must go to him."

She struggled madly and beat fiercely at the hands that held her.

"Let me go! Let me go! Oh, he's dead," she wailed. "Dead. And I loved
him so. Oh, be merciful! Let me go to him!" and suddenly her strength
gave way and she collapsed into Noreen's arms, weeping bitterly.

They heard the clattering steps meet others coming down the hill and a
hurried conversation ensue. Noreen recognised one of the voices. Then
both men came running down.

"It's the doctor," said Mrs. Dermot. "Come to the gate and we'll ask him
what has happened."

"Mr. Macdonald! Mr. Macdonald!" she cried as the hurrying footsteps drew
near.

"Who's that? Mrs. Dermot? For God's sake get into the house. There's a
man running amuck. Wargrave's killed. I'm wanted"; and the doctor,
taking no thought of danger to himself when there was need of his skill,
ran on into the darkness.

"I must--I will go!" cried Muriel.

"Very well. Perhaps it's not true. We must know. We may be able to
help," replied her friend.

And with a word to Sher Afzul to guard her babies from danger she seized
Muriel's hand, and the two girls ran towards the Fort in the track that
Wargrave had followed to his death, it seemed.

* * * * *

Pistol in hand Wargrave had raced across the parade ground. At the gate
of the Fort he was challenged; and when he answered an Indian officer
came out of the darkness to him.

"Sahib," he said hurriedly. "Havildar Mahommed Ashraf Khan has been shot
in his bed in barracks. The sentry over the magazine is missing with his
rifle."

Wargrave entered the Fort. Opposite the guard-room the detachment was
falling in rapidly, the men carrying their rifles and running up from
their barrack-rooms in various stages of undress. By the flickering
light of a lantern held up for him a non-commissioned officer was
calling the roll, and his voice rumbled along in monotonous tones. The
guard were standing under arms.

"Put out that lamp!" cried the subaltern sharply. It would only serve to
light up other marks for the invisible assassin if, like most men who
run _amok_, he meant to keep on killing until slain himself. "No; take
it into the guard-room and shut the door."

In the darkness the silence was intense, broken only by the heavy
br