“Good gracious!” ejaculated Mrs. Dearman in great surprise.  “When_ever_ when?”

“I’ll tell you,” said the man, smiling fondly.  “You have my photograph.  You took it yourself—­on board the ’Malaya’.”

“I?” said Mrs. Dearman.  “What are you talking about?”

“About you, dearest, and the time when I first saw you—­and fell in love with you;—­love at first sight, indeed.”

“But I never photographed you on board ship.  I never saw you on a ship.  I met you first here in Gungapur.”

“Do you remember the ‘Malaya’ stopping to pick up a shipwrecked sailor, a castaway, in a little dug-out canoe, somewhere in the Indian Ocean, when you were first coming out to India?  But of course you do—­you have the snap-shot in your collection....”

“Why—­yes—­I remember, of course—­but that was a horrid, beastly native.  The creature could only speak Hindustani.  He was the sole survivor of the crew of some dhow or bunder-boat, they said....  He lived and worked with the Lascars till we got to Bombay.  Yes....”

“I was that native,” said Colonel Ross-Ellison.

“You,” whispered Mrs. Dearman. “You,” and scanned his face intently.

“Yes.  I. I am half a native.  My father was a Pathan.  He——­”

“What?” asked the woman hoarsely, drawing away. “What? What are you saying?”

“I am half Pathan—­my father was a Pathan and my mother an Australian squatter’s daughter.”

“Go,” shrieked Mrs. Dearman, springing to her feet. “Go.  You wretch!  You mean, base liar!  To cheat me so!  To pretend you were a gentleman.  Leave my house!  Go!  You horrible—­mongrel—­you——.  To take me in your arms!  To make love to me!  To kiss me!  Ugh!  I could die for shame!  I could die——­”

The face of the man grew terrible to see.  There was no trace of the West in it, no sign of English ancestry, the face of a mad, blood-mad Afghan.

“We will both die,” he gasped, and took her by the throat.

* * * * *

A few minutes later a Pathan in the dirty dress of his race fled from Colonel Ross-Ellison’s bungalow in Cantonments and took the road to the city.

Threading his way through its tortuous lanes, alleys, slums and bazaars he reached a low door in the high wall that surrounded an almost windowless house, knocked in a particular manner, parleyed, and was admitted.

The moment he was inside, the custodian of the door slammed, locked and bolted it, and then raised an outcry.

“Come,” he shouted in Pushtoo.  “The Spy!  The Feringhi!  The Pushtoo-knowing English dog, that Abdulali Habbibullah,” and he drew his Khyber knife and circled round Ross-Ellison.

A clatter of heavy boots, the opening of wooden “windows” that looked inward on to the high-walled courtyard, and in a minute a throng of Pathans and other Mussulmans entered the compound from the house—­some obviously aroused from heavy slumber.