He mounted the camel behind the driver, and for the next few minutes all his questions and perplexities vanished from his mind.  He simply clung to the waist of the driver.  For the camel bumped down into steep ditches and scuffled up out of them, climbed over mounds and slid down the further side of them, and all the while Thresk had the sensation of being poised uncertainly in the air as high as a church-steeple.  Suddenly however the lights of the camp grew large and the camel padded silently in between the tents.  It was halted some twenty yards from a great marquee.  Another servant robed in white with a scarlet sash about his waist received Thresk from the camel-driver.

He spoke a few words in Hindustani, but Thresk shook his head.  Then the man moved towards the marquee and Thresk followed him.  He was conscious of a curious excitement, and only when he caught his breath was he aware that his heart was beating fast.  As they neared the tent he heard voices within.  They grew louder as he reached it—­one was a man’s, loud, wrathful, the other was a woman’s.  It was not raised but it had a ring in it of defiance.  The words Thresk could not hear, but he knew the woman’s voice.  The servant raised the flap of the tent.

“Huzoor, the Sahib is here,” he said, and at once both the voices were stilled.  As Thresk stood in the doorway both the man and the woman turned.  The man, with a little confusion in his manner, came quickly towards him.  Over his shoulder Thresk saw Stella Ballantyne staring at him, as if he had risen from the grave.  Then, as he took Ballantyne’s extended hand, Stella swiftly raised her hand to her throat with a curious gesture and turned away.  It seemed as if now that she was sure that Thresk stood there before her, a living presence, she had something to hide from him.

CHAPTER VI

IN THE TENT AT CHITIPTUR

The marquee was large and high.  It had a thick lining of a dull red colour and a carpet covered the floor; cushioned basket chairs and a few small tables stood here and there; against one wall rose an open escritoire with a box of cheroots upon it; the two passages to the sleeping-tents and the kitchen were hidden by grass-screens and between them stood a great Chesterfield sofa.  It was, in a word, the tent of people who were accustomed to make their home in it for weeks at a time.  Even the latest books were to be seen.  But it was dark.

A single lamp swinging above the round dinner-table from the cross-pole of the roof burnt in the very centre of the tent; and that was all.  The corners were shadowy; the lining merely absorbed the rays and gave none back.  The round pool of light which spread out beneath the lamp was behind Ballantyne when he turned to the doorway, so Thresk for a moment was only aware of him as a big heavily-built man in a smoking-jacket and a starched white shirt; and it was to that starched white shirt that he spoke, making his apologies.  He was glad too to delay for a second or two the moment when he must speak to Stella.  In her presence this eight long years of effort and work had become a very little space.