In the dim hallway two men stood guarding the door to the Chief’s chamber, and when the man who had taken the Gulab up explained her mission, one of them said, “Wait you here.  I will ask of Kassim his pleasure.”  Presently he returned; “The Commander will see the woman but if it is a matter of trifling let the penalty fall upon the guard below.  The mingling of women in an affair of men is an abomination in the sight of Allah.”

When Bootea entered the chamber she gave a gasping cry of horror.  The Chief lay upon the floor, face downward, just as he had dropped when slain, for Kassim had said; “Amir Khan is dead, may Allah take him to his bosom, and such things as we may learn of his death may help us to avenge our Chief.  Touch not the body.”

Her entrance was not more than half observed, for Kassim at that moment was questioning the Afghan, who stood, a man on either side of him, and two behind.

He was just answering a question from the Commander and was saying:  “I left your Chief with the Peace of Allah upon both our heads, for he gripped my hand in fellowship, and said that we were two men.  Why should I slay one such who was veritably a soldier, who was a follower of Mahomet?”

The man who had brought Barlow up to Amir Khan when he came for the audience, said:  “Commander, I left this one, the Afghan, here with the Chief and took with me his sword and the short gun; he had no weapons.”

“Inshalla! it was but a pretence,” the Commander declared; “a pretence to gain the confidence of the Chief, for he was slain with his own knife.  It was a Patan trick.”

The Commander turned to the Afghan:  “Why hadst thou audience with the Chief alone and at night here—­what was the mission?”

Barlow hesitated, a slight hope that might save his own life would be to declare himself as a Sahib, and his mission; but he felt sure that the Chief had been murdered because of this very thing, that somebody, an agent of Nana Sahib, had waited hidden, had killed the Chief and taken the paper.  To speak of it would be to start a rumour that would run across India that the British had negotiated with the Pindaris, and if the paper weren’t found there—­which it wouldn’t be—­he wouldn’t be believed.  Better to accept the roll of the dice as they lay, that he had lost, and die as an Afghan rather than as an Englishman, a spy who had killed their Chief.

“Speak, Patan,” Kassim commanded; “thou dwellest overlong upon some lie.”

“There was a mission,” Barlow answered; “it was from my own people, the people of Sind.”

“Of Sindhia?”

“No; from the land of Sind, Afghanistan.  We ride not with the Mahrattas; they are infidels, while we be followers of the true Prophet.”

“Thou art a fair speaker, Afghan.  And was there a sealed message?”

“There was, Commander Sahib.”

“Where is it now?”

“I know not.  It was left with Amir Khan.”