“For the credit of the British I am pretending to be a Baluchi.  I am not a Baluchi and I hope to die like a Briton—­at any rate like a man.  I have been held responsible for what I did when I was not responsible, and shall be killed in cold blood by sane people, for what I did in hot blood when quite as mad as any madman who ever lived.  I don’t complain—­I explain.  I want you to understand, if you can, that it was not your friend John Ross-Ellison who did that awful deed.  It was a Pathan named Ilderim Dost Mahommed.  And yet it was I.” ["Poor chap is mad!” murmured the bewildered and horrified reader who had lived in a kind of nightmare since the woman he loved had been murdered by the man he loved.  “The strain of the war has been too much for him.  He must have had sunstroke too.”  He read on, with misty sight.]

“And it is I who will pay the penalty of Ilderim Dost Mahommed’s deed.  As I say, I do not complain, and if the Law did not kill me I would certainly kill myself—­to get rid of Ilderim Dost Mahommed.

“I have thought of doing so and cheating the scaffold, but have decided that Ilderim will get his deserts better if I hang, and I may perhaps get rid of him, thus, for ever.

“Will you come?  I would not ask it of any living soul but you, and I ask it because your presence would show me that you blindly believe that it was not John Robin Ross-Ellison who killed poor Mrs. Dearman, and that would enable me to die quite happy.  Your presence would also be a great help to me.  It would help me to feel that, whatever I have lived, I die a Briton—­that if I could not live without Ilderim Dost Mahommed I can die without him.  But this must seem lunatic wanderings to you.

“I apologize for writing to you and I hesitated long.  At length I said, ’I will tell him the truth—­that the deed was not done by Ross-Ellison and perhaps he will understand, and come’.  Mike—­John Robin Ross-Ellison did not murder Mrs. Dearman.

“Your distracted and broken-hearted ex-friend,

“J.R.  ROSS-ELLISON.”

“He was ‘queer’ at times,” said Captain Michael Malet-Marsac.  “There was a kink somewhere.  The bravest, coolest, keenest chap I ever met, the finest fighting-man, the truest comrade and friend,—­and from time to time something queer peeped out, and one was puzzled....  Madness in the family, I suppose....  Poor devil, poor, poor devil!” and Captain Malet-Marsac stamped about and swore, for his eyes tingled and his chin quivered.

Sec. 3.

Captain Michael Malet-Marsac alighted from his horse at the great gate of the Gungapur Jail, loosed girths, slid stirrup irons up the leathers to the saddle, and handed his reins to the orderly who had ridden behind him.

“Walk the horses up and down,” said he, for both were sweating and the morning was very cold.  Perhaps it was the cold that made Captain Michael Malet-Marsac’s strong face so white, made his teeth chatter and his hands shake.  Perhaps it was the cold that made him feel so sick, and that weakened the tendons of his knees so that he could scarcely stand—­and would fain have thrown himself upon the ground.