It was a dramatic scene.  The stalwart young Pathan in uniform with his wrists handcuffed stood with all the bold bearing of his race by the bedside of the man that he had tried to kill, while two powerful sepoys armed with drawn bayonets hemmed him in, their hands on his shoulders.

The prisoner looked for a moment at the pale face of the wounded man, then his bold eyes suffused with tears as he said: 

“Huzoor! (The Presence!) I am sorry.  Had I known that night it was Your Honour I would not have lifted my rifle against you.  The Sahib has always been good to me, to all of us.  My enemy I slew, as we of the Puktana must do to all who insult us.  That deed I do not regret.”

Wargrave looked up sorrowfully at the splendidly-built young fellow—­barely twenty-one—­who had only done as he had been taught to do from his cradle.  Among Pathans blood only can wash away the stain of an insult.  The officer felt no anger against him for his own injuries and regretted that false notions of honour had led him to kill a comrade and were now sending him to a shameful death.

“I am sorry, Gul Mahommed, very sorry,” he said.  “You were always a good soldier, and now you must die.”

The Pathan drew himself up with all the haughty pride of his race.

“I do not fear death, Sahib.  They will give me the noose.  But my father can spare me.  He has five other sons to fight for him.  If only the Sahib would forgive——.”

Wargrave, much moved, held out his hand to him.  The prisoner touched it with his manacled ones, then raised his fingers to his forehead.

“For your kindness, Sahib, salaam!”

Then he turned and walked proudly out of the room and Wargrave heard the tramp of heavy feet on the rocky road outside as the prisoner was marched away on the long trail to the gallows.  Two months later Gul Mahommed was hanged in the courtyard of Alipur jail in Calcutta before detachments of all the regiments garrisoning the city.

The subaltern had long chafed at the restraint of an invalid before Macdonald took him off the sick-list and he was free to wander again with Colonel Dermot in the forest and among the mountains.  Before the hot weather ended Raymond came to spend three weeks with him and be initiated into the delights of sport in the great jungle.

When the long imprisonment of the rains came Wargrave began to suffer in health; for his wounds had sapped his strength more than he knew and Macdonald shook his head over him.  Nor was he the only invalid; for little Brian grew pale and listless in the mists that enveloped the outpost constantly now, until finally the doctor decreed that his mother, much as she hated parting from her husband and her home, must take the children to Darjeeling.  And he ordered the subaltern to go too.  Frank did not repine, after Mrs. Dermot had casually intimated that Muriel Benson was arranging to join her at the railway station and accompany her on a long visit to Darjeeling.