There was a hush of three seconds.  Then Kassim, whose eye had searched the room, saw the iron box.  “This has a bearing upon matters,” he declared; “this affair of a written message.  Open the box and see if it is within,” he commanded a Pindari.

“How now, woman,” for the Gulab had stepped forward; “what dost thou here—­ah! there was talk of a message from the Chief.  It might be, it might be, because,”—­his leonine face, full whiskered, the face of a wild rider, a warrior, softened as he looked at the slight figure,—­“our noble Chief had spoken soft words of thee, and passed the order that thou wert Begum, that whatsoever thou desired was to be.”

“Commander,” Bootea said, and her voice was like her eyes, trembling, vibrant, “let me look upon the face of Amir Khan; then there are things to be said that will avenge his death in the sight of Allah.”

Kassim hesitated.  Then he said; “It matters not—­we have the killer.”  And reverently, with his own hands, he turned the Chief on his back, saying, softly, “In the name of Allah, thou restest better thus.”

The Gulab, kneeling, pushed back the black beard with her hand, and they thought that she was making oath upon the beard of the slain man.  Then she rose to her feet, and said:  “There is one without, Hunsa, bring him here, and see that there is no weapon upon him.”

Kassim passed an order and Hunsa was brought, his evil eyes turning from face to face with the restless query of a caged leopard.

“There is no paper, Commander Sahib,” the jamadar said, returning from his search of the iron-box.

“There was none such,” Kassim growled; “it was but a Patan lie; the message is yonder,” and he pointed to the smear of blood upon the marble floor.

Then he turned to Bootea:  “Now, woman, speak what is in thy mind, for this is an affair of action.”

“Commander Sahib,” Bootea began, “yonder man,”—­and she pointed a slim hand toward Barlow—­“is not an Afghan, he is a Sahib.”

This startling announcement filled the room with cries of astonishment and anger; tulwars flashed.  Barlow shivered; not because of the impending danger, for he had accepted the roll of the dice, but at the thought that Bootea was betraying him, that all she had said and done before was nothing—­a lie, that she was an accomplice in this murder of the Chief, and was now giving the Pindaris the final convincing proof, the reason.

To deny the revelation was useless; they would torture him, and he was to die anyway; better to die claiming to be a messenger from the British rather than as one sent to murder the Chief.

Kassim bellowed an order subduing the tumult; then he asked:  “What art thou, a Patan, or as the woman says, an Englay?”

“I am a Sahib,” Barlow answered; “a Captain in the British service, and came to your Chief with a written message of friendship.”

Kassim pointed to the blood on the floor:  “Thou wert a good messenger, infidel; thou hast slain a follower of the Prophet.”