“Sacred be the shrine!” he answered in Hindustani.  “Clearly thou art of us—­not of those others.”

“Others?  What others?  I am but newly come to this country.”

“Walk with me, then, to my abode, sup with me, eat of my salt, and I will tell thee then, oh, brother.  But I forget:  thou hast no knowledge of me.  Listen, then.  I am Arjeeb Noosrut, father of the High Priest Seydama, and it is among the people of my house that the gun is yet preserved.  Nor has the blood of Seydama been ever washed from the wood of it.  Come.”

All in a moment a light seemed to break over Cleek’s brain.  The missing link had been supplied—­the one thing that could make possible the wild thought which had come to him last night had been given into his hands, and here at last was the key to the amazing mystery!  He turned without a word and went with Arjeeb Noosrut.

“What an ass!” he said to himself in the soundless words of thought “What an ass never to have suspected it when it is all so dear!”

Meantime Ailsa and the boy, dismissed from any further need of service, walked on through the deepening dusk and turned their faces homeward.  But they had not gone twenty yards from the spot where Cleek had seen them last when his little lordship set up a joyful cry and pointed excitedly to a claret-coloured limousine which at that moment swung in from the middle of the roadway and slowed down as it neared the kerb.

“Oh, look, Miss Lorne; here’s mummie’s motor car; and I do believe that’s Bimbi peeping out of it!” exclaimed the child—­“Bimbi” being his pet name for Captain Hawksley—­then broke, in wild excitement, from Ailsa’s detaining hand and fled to a tall, military-looking man with a fair beard and moustache who had just that moment alighted from the vehicle.  “It is Bimbi—­it is!—­it is!” he shouted as he ran.  “Oh, Bimbi, I am glad!”

“Ceddie, dear, you mustn’t be so boisterous!” chided Ailsa, coming up with him at the kerb.  “How fond he is of you to be sure, Captain Hawksley.  You’ve come for us, I suppose?  Ceddie recognised the car at once.”

“Yes; jump in,” he answered.  “Lady Chepstow sent me after you.  She’s nervous, poor soul, every moment the boy’s away from her.  Jump in, old chap!”—­catching up his little lordship and swinging him inside.  “Better take the back seat, Miss Lorne; it’s more comfortable.  Quite settled, both of you?  That’s good.  All right, chauffeur—­Home!”

Then he jumped in after them, closed the door, dropped into a seat, and the motor, making a wide curve out into the road, pelted away into the fast-gathering darkness.

“Bimbi says maybe he’s going to be my daddy one day—­didn’t you, Bimbi?” said his little lordship, climbing up on to “Bimbi’s” knee and snuggling close to him.

“I say, you know, you mustn’t tell secrets, old chap!” was the laughing response.  “Miss Lorne will hand you over to Nursie with orders to put you to bed if you do, I know—­won’t you, Miss Lorne?”