As Dermot neared the Dalehams’ bungalow he saw that it was surrounded by a cordon of coolies armed with rifles and strung out many yards apart.  He raced swiftly for a gap between two of them; but a man rose from the ground and snatched at him.  The soldier struck savagely at him with the hand in which the pistol was firmly clenched, putting all his weight into the blow.  The native crumpled and fell in a heap.

Dashing on Dermot shouted Daleham’s name.  From behind a barricade of boxes on the verandah a stern voice which he recognised as belonging to one of the Punjaubi servants whom he had provided, called out: 

“Kohn hai?  Kohn atha? (Who is there?  Who comes?)”

“Sher Afzul!  It is I. Dermot Sahib,” he replied, as he sprang up the verandah steps.

The muzzle of a rifle was pointed at him over the barricade, and a bearded face peered at him.

“It is the Major Sahib!” said the Mohammedan.  “In the name of Allah, Sahib, have you brought your sepoys?”

“No; I am alone.  Where are the Sahib and the missie baba?”

“In the bungalow.  Enter, Sahib.”

Dermot climbed over the barricade and pushed open the door of the dining-room, which was in darkness.  But the heavy curtain dividing it from the drawing-room was dragged aside and Daleham appeared in the doorway, outlined against the faint light of a turned-down lamp.  Behind him Noreen was rising from a chair.

“Who’s there?” cried the boy, raising a revolver.

“It’s all right, Daleham.  It’s I, Dermot.  I’m alone, I’m sorry to say.”

A stifled cry burst from the girl.

“Oh, you are safe, thank God!” she cried, her hand at her heart.

“What has happened here?” asked Dermot, entering the room.

Fred let fall the curtain as he answered: 

“Hell’s broke loose on the garden, sir.  The coolies have mutinied.  Parry’s dead, murdered; and we’re alive only by the kind mercies of that brute Chunerbutty, damn him!  You were right about him, Major; and I was a fool....  Is it true you’ve been attacked up in Ranga Duar?” he continued.

“Are you wounded, Major Dermot?” broke in the girl anxiously.

“No, Miss Daleham.  I’m quite safe and sound.”

Then he told them briefly what had happened.  When he had finished he asked them when the trouble began at Malpura.

“Three days ago,” replied Fred.  “The wind was blowing from the north, and we heard firing up in the mountains.  I thought you were having an extra go of musketry there.  But the coolies suddenly stopped work and gathered outside their village, where those infernal Brahmins harangued them.  I went to order them back to their jobs——­“.

“Where was Parry?”

“Lying dead drunk in his bungalow.  Well, some of the coolies attacked me with lathis, others tried to protect me.  The Brahmins told me that the end of the British Raj (dominion) had come and that you were being attacked in Ranga Duar by a big army from China and would be wiped out.  Then I was hustled back to the bungalow where those Mohammedan servants that you got for us—­lucky you did!—­turned out with rifles, which they said afterwards you’d given them, and wanted to fire on the mob.  But I stopped them.”