rew it aside. "Look!"

Thresk, leaning forward in his chair, looked out through the opening. He
saw the moonlit plain in a soft haze, in the middle of it the green lamp
of a railway signal and beyond the distant ridge, on which straggled the
ruins of old Chitipur.

"Look!" cried Ballantyne. "There's tourist India all in one: a desert, a
railway and a deserted city, hovels and temples, deep sacred pools and
forgotten palaces--the whole bag of tricks crumbling slowly to ruin
through centuries on the top of a hill. That's what the good people come
out for to see in the cold weather--Jarwhal Junction and old Chitipur."

He dropped the curtain contemptuously and it swung back, shutting out the
desert. He took a step or two back into the tent and flung out his arms
wide on each side of him.

"But bless your soul," he cried vigorously, "here's the real India."

Thresk looked about the tent and understood.

"I see," he answered--"a place very badly lit, a great blot of light in
the centre and all around it dark corners and grim shadows."

Ballantyne nodded his head with a grim smile upon his lips.

"Oh, you have learnt that! Well, you shall do me a service and in return
you shall look into the shadows. But we will have the table cleared
first." And he called aloud for Baram Singh.

CHAPTER VII

THE PHOTOGRAPH

While Baram Singh was clearing the table Ballantyne lifted the box of
cheroots from the top of the bureau and held it out to Thresk.

"Will you smoke?"

Thresk, however, though he smoked had not during his stay in India
acquired the taste for the cheroot; and it interested him in later times
to reflect how largely he owed his entanglement in the tragic events
which were to follow to that accidental distaste. For conscious of it he
had brought his pipe with him, and he now fetched it out of his pocket.

"This, if I may," he said.

"Of course."

Thresk filled his pipe and lighted it, Ballantyne for his part lit a
cheroot and replaced the box upon the top, close to a heavy
riding-crop with a bone handle, which Thresk happened now to notice
for the first time.

"Be quick!" he cried impatiently to Baram Singh, and seated himself in
the swing-chair in front of the bureau, turning it so as not to have his
back to Thresk at the table. Baram Singh hurriedly finished his work and
left the marquee by the passage leading to the kitchen. Ballantyne waited
with his eyes upon that passage until the grass-mat