"Mem-sahib!" it said. "Mem-sahib!"

She looked down and saw an old, old man, more like a monkey than a human being, standing huddled in a ragged chuddah on the edge of the path.  He seemed to be looking at her, obviously he must have seen her sitting there, and yet to Olga his eyes looked blind.  They stared straight up at the sky while he spoke, and there was a dreadful paleness about them, a lifeless hue that contrasted very strangely with the deep copper of his bearded face.

“Do not be alarmed, most gracious!” he begged in a thin reedy voice.  “I come with a message from the captain sahib.  He has been detained in the city; but all is well with him.  He bids me to say that he desires the mem to eat alone this morning, but to have no fear.  He will be with her again ere the sun has reached its height.”

Olga leaned upon the balustrade of the verandah and looked down at her strange visitor.  She was not sorry that she was thus raised above him, for he was very dirty.  The voluminous chuddah in which he was swathed looked as if it had wrapped him in those selfsame folds for many years.

“But what is the sahib doing?” she asked.  “Why doesn’t he come?”

The old man wagged a deferential beard.  “Excellency, how should a poor old seller of moonstones know?”

“Oh!” Olga suddenly became interested in the messenger.  “You are the moonstone-seller, are you?” she said.  “Have you ever been here before?”

He bent himself before her in a low salaam.  “I am my lord’s most humble servant,” he told her meekly.  “A very poor man, most gracious,—­a very poor man.  I come here at my lord’s bidding—­when he needs me.”

Olga’s brow puckered.  “How queer!” she said.  “I wonder I have never seen you before.  Perhaps you only come at night.”

“Only at night, most gracious,” he said.

He made as if he would hobble away, but she called to him to wait, while she ran to her room to fetch a few annas for him.  It took her but a second or two to find what she wanted, but when she emerged again upon the verandah her visitor had disappeared.

She stood and searched the compound with astonished eyes, but no sign of him was visible.  He must have removed himself with considerable rapidity for so old a man, and remembering his extreme poverty, Olga was puzzled.  She had never known a native run away from backsheesh before.

She sat down to her solitary breakfast, no longer actively anxious concerning Nick, but still by no means easy.  She was firmly convinced that he was running risks in the city, and she longed to have him back.

The morning dragged away.  She would not leave the bungalow lest he should return in her absence.  She busied herself with the making of a fancy-dress which she and her ayah had concocted for the coming ball at the mess-house.  It was to be quite an important affair, and every European within reach was to attend—­according to Noel’s decree.  He had persuaded his colonel to have a purely European function for once, pleading that it would be so much more like Home; and Colonel Bradlaw, albeit with hesitation, had yielded the point.  So to that one night’s entertainment no native guests had been invited.