dn't defend himself, but he made signs that if they
would let him off he would show them something. They were open to a
deal, and he took them across to the thicket of bamboos, and showed
them the door in the wall, making them understand somehow that old
Partab Singh used to go that way often at night. They lost the scent
when they found that the door only led down to the wild beasts' pit,
but picked it up again by a very pretty bit of deduction. It was quite
certain that the treasury couldn't be under the pit or under the tank,
so that the passage leading to it must pass between them, and it must
lie in the direction either of the palace or the Residency. They broke
ground in the Residency direction first, sinking two or three shafts in
likely places, while I watched them with great interest, and asked
intelligent questions. It was the one way I had of getting a little
bit even with them for what they were doing to me. They held to the
Residency theory because they couldn't see otherwise how you managed to
get at the treasure for paying the soldiers without being discovered,
but Sher Singh never believed in it much. Once when he was a small boy
his father let him come with him into the ordinary treasury under the
zenana, and he heard what sounded to him like men working underground
not very far off. He couldn't make out where the sound came from, and
his father diddled him with some fairy-tale to account for it, but now
he remembered. So he had every inch of the treasury walls examined,
and they came on the air-hole looking into the passage. Then they had
only to break down the wall between, and there they were--and I give
you my word for it, Hal, I was thankful! When they were all busy
watching what was being done, and the gold was being handed up through
a shaft that they dug, I just dropped down and went to sleep. It
wasn't for long, but when I woke up I felt fit to face Sher Singh or
the devil himself."

"Pretty much the same thing, after all," said Gerrard grimly.

"I should rayther think so! But the worst was over. It seems that
they were uncommon disappointed in the amount of the treasure. They
expected sufficient to make them all rich for life, and there was only
just about enough to settle Sher Singh comfortably on the _gaddi_."

"Just what I calculated--only it was for poor little Kharrak Singh."

"Well, they held palaver upon palaver to decide whether they should
hang the expense and plump