. "Lie down here and take
this. I give you fair warning, Master Gerrard, you ain't going to die
on my hands and leave me to settle with this hornet's nest you have
stirred up here--not if I know it."

Gerrard obeyed meekly, and lay still until the trees and Charteris and
the horses and the troopers had ceased whirling and wavering before his
eyes. Then he sat up. "Bob, what was it you told Sher Singh? How can
it have happened?"

"Bounce, all bounce!" said Charteris sadly. "At least, my Darwanis are
certainly behind me, but a jolly good way behind; and as to Antony, if
he is on the move, it's solely in response to my urgent entreaties,
which he is highly unlikely to regard with favour."

"Anyhow, you seem to have got me out of a very nasty fix."

"Such was my intention. But you wish it hadn't fallen to me to get you
out? Never mind, old boy; I wish it hadn't been you to be got out."

"Oh, nonsense! You know I'm uncommon obliged to you, my dear fellow.
But did you fly here? It can't possibly be my message this morning
that brought you."

"Lie down like a decent Christian and don't talk, and I'll tell you all
about it. You don't seem to realise that you have had a precious
narrow escape of sunstroke. Well, you don't need me to tell you that I
have been keeping a vigilant eye on your proceedings for some time,
with a shrewd suspicion that the air of the very high circles in which
you were moving would not be good for your health. I felt so more than
ever when my spies brought me word that Sher Singh was sneaking through
my territory, evidently bound for Agpur. I sent him my salaams and a
polite invitation to pay me a visit, but he had made himself scarce
just in time. Then I thought it well to take the liberty of opening a
letter of Antony's to you, as we agreed I should do in case of
emergency, and when I found him cautioning you against any interference
in the question of the Agpur succession, and talking of the
extraordinary moderation of the claim advanced by the elder son, I
decided it was time to move. So I set out to meet you on your way to
the frontier, ostensibly to make arrangements for receiving the Rajah
properly. This morning the people in the village where we halted for
the night were full of the Rajah's death. As usual, nothing would make
them say how they knew of it, but they were firm on the fact, so I saw
the plot was thickening. Then, as we rode, we came across your
messenger, an