“Hanani!  Are you—­sure?” Stella’s hand gripped the ayah’s shoulder with convulsive, strength.  “Then who—­who—­was the sahib they shot in the jungle—­the sahib who died at the bungalow of Ralston sahib?  Did—­Hafiz—­tell you that?”

“That—­” said Hanani, and paused as if considering how best to present the information,—­“that was another sahib.”

“Another sahib?” Stella was trembling violently.  Her hold upon Hanani was the clutch of desperation, “Who—­what was his name?”

She felt in the momentary pause that followed that the eyes behind the veil were looking at her strangely, speculatively.  Then very softly Hanani answered her.

“His name, mem-sahib, was Dacre.”

“Dacre!” Stella repeated the name blankly.  It seemed to hold too great a meaning for her to grasp.

“So Hafiz told Hanani,” said the ayah.

“But—­Dacre!” Stella hung upon the name as if it held her by a fascination from which she could not shake free.  “Is that—­all you know?” she said at last.

“Not all, my mem-sahib,” answered Hanani, in the soothing tone of one who instructs a child.  “Hafiz knew the sahib in the days before Hanani came to Kurrumpore.  Hafiz told a strange story of the sahib.  He had married and had taken his wife to the mountains beyond Srinagar.  And there an evil fate had overtaken him, and she—­the mem-sahib—­had returned alone.”

Hanani paused dramatically.

“Go on!” gasped Stella almost inarticulately.

Hanani took up her tale again in a mysterious whisper that crept in eerie echoes about the ruined place in which they sat. “Mem-sahib, Hafiz said that there was doubtless a reason for which he feigned death.  He said that Dacre sahib was a bad man, and my lord the captain sahib knew it.  Wherefore he followed him to the mountains and commanded him to be gone, and thus—­he went.”

“But who—­told—­Hafiz?” questioned Stella, still struggling against unbelief.

“How should Hanani know?” murmured the ayah deprecatingly “Hafiz lives in the bazaar.  He hears many things—­some true—­some false.  But that Dacre sahib returned last night and that he now is dead is true, mem-sahib.  And that my lord the captain sahib lives is also true.  Hanani swears it by her grey hairs.”

“Then where—­where is the captain sahib?” whispered Stella.

The ayah shook her head.  “It is not given to Hanani to know all things,” she protested.  “But—­she can find out.  Does the mem-sahib desire her to find out?”

“Yes,” Stella breathed.