was studded with the tents of the Pindari horsemen. On his right,
floating up the hill in terraces, its marble white in the moonlight,
was the palace where Amir Khan lay dead. It still held a sombre
quietude; the murder had not been discovered.

He had mapped this route out carefully in the day and knew just how to
avoid the patrolling guards, and he was back in the narrow _chouk_ of
the town that was a struggling stream of swaggering Pindaris, and
darker skinned Marwari bunnias and shopkeepers. Hunsa pushed his way
through this motley crowd and continued on to the gate of the palace.

To the guard who halted him he said: "If the other who went up to see
the Chief has gone, I would go now, _meer_ sahib. As I have said, it
is a message from the Gulab Begum."

"I looked for you when I returned from above," the guard answered, "but
you had gone. The Afghan has gone but a little since--stay you here."

He called within, "Yacoub!"

It was the orderly who had conducted Barlow to Amir Khan who answered,
and to him the guard said: "Go to the Chief's apartment and say that
one waits here with word from the favourite."

Hunsa sat down nonchalantly upon a marble step, and drew the guard into
a talk of raids, explaining that he had ridden once upon a time with
Chitu, on his foray into the territory of the Nizam.