This startling announcement filled the room with cries of astonishment
and anger; _tulwars_ flashed. Barlow shivered; not because of the
impending danger, for he had accepted the roll of the dice, but at the
thought that Bootea was betraying him, that all she had said and done
before was nothing--a lie, that she was an accomplice in this murder of
the Chief, and was now giving the Pindaris the final convincing proof,
the reason.

To deny the revelation was useless; they would torture him, and he was
to die anyway; better to die claiming to be a _messenger_ from the
British rather than as one sent to murder the Chief.

Kassim bellowed an order subduing the tumult; then he asked: "What art
thou, a Patan, or as the woman says, an Englay?"

"I am a Sahib," Barlow answered; "a Captain in the British service, and
came to your Chief with a written message of friendship."

Kassim pointed to the blood on the floor: "Thou wert a good messenger,
infidel; thou hast slain a follower of the Prophet."

But Bootea raised a slim hand, and, her voice trembling with intensity,
cried: "Commander, Amir Khan was not slain with the dagger, he was
killed by the _towel_. Look you at his throat and you will see the
mark."

"Bismillah!" came in a cry of astonishment from the Commander's throat,
and the marble walls of the _Surya-Mahal_ (room of audience) echoed
gasps and curses. Kassim himself had knelt by the dead Chief, and now
rising, said: "By Allah! it is true. That dog--" his finger was