“I can’t,” she said sturdily.  “I simply could not kill except in self-defence.”

And although young Dean sighed lugubriously over his lady’s defalcation, Jan Cuxson adored her utterly for her womanliness, and translated the remark the head shikari made as he handed back to the mem-sahib the rifle he had examined.

“He says he knows that in time of need you would be brave, and would have no fear even of a man-eater, but he says that you must carry your rifle because you can never tell in the jungle what may be awaiting you round the next corner.”

As none of the party knew that the temple stood well hidden but quite close to the edge of one of the smallest creeks, open only to the narrowest native craft, they had no idea they were being taken there by a most circuitous route; and the shikari who did know thought that the silent guide was doing it purposely in order to give the sahibs an opportunity to add yet more to the ever-increasing bag of odds-and-ends, also to his backsheesch later on.

They were all longing to get to the ruins; more than desirous for their evening meal; aching to remove their boots, and the dust, and other evidence of a hard day’s tramp.

“We are almost there, mem-sahib,” said the very fine old shikari who, by the way, is a real personage, as he noticed a certain lack of elasticity in Leonie’s movements.  “Let us hasten, because at the fall of the shadows, all that is evil will come down to the waters, and behold! as this jungle is cut across and yet across with water-ways, the evil ones may even cross the sahibs’ path.”

“How much farther is it?”

“Another half-mile of this path, sahib, then through a glade without trees, then another mile and we find the outer wall of the temple.”

The perfect English came from a small knot of natives difficult to distinguish in the shadows.

Leonie swung round and stared, and turning to Jan Cuxson put her hand on his arm.

“Funny, isn’t it?” she said softly.  “But do you know I am sure I have heard that voice before, and all this”—­and she waved a hand vaguely—­“seems so very, very familiar.”

The head-man halted them once more at the edge of the clearing.

Strange bare spots these clearings which occur now and again in the Sunderbunds, looking for all the world as though they had been cleared by man some time or another for building purposes.  Well, who knows if that doughty adventurer, Khan Jehan, did not prospect thereabouts centuries back.

“We will now place the mem-sahibs in the centre of a widening circle,” said the shikari patiently, showing no sign of the detestation in which he held all sports-women, and the amount of trouble and anxiety their presence always entailed in a shikar, however insignificant.

To lose a sahib would be bad enough, but to see a mem-sahib seized and carried off before your very eyes, well, by the power of all the gods, that would mean ruin if not death; for, being a very wise old man, however good the news, he always prepared for the worst.