As Barlow came to where the town reached to the river bank he saw that the concourse of people was heading south along the river.  This was rather strange, for a bridge of stone arches traversed by the aid of two islands the Nahal to the other side.  A quarter of a mile lower down he came to where the river, that above wandered in three channels over a rocky bed, now glided sluggishly in one channel.  It was like a ribboned lake, smooth in its slow slip over a muddy bed, and circling in a long sweep to the bank.  On the level plain was a concourse of thousands, horsemen, who sat their lean-flanked Marwari or Cabul horses as though they waited to swing into a parade, the march past.  The sowars Barlow had seen in the town were in front of him, riding four abreast, and at a command from their leader, opened up and formed a scimitar-shaped band, their horses’ noses toward the river.  As he came close Barlow saw Kassim in a group of officers, and Hunsa, a soldier on either side of him, was standing free and unshackled in front of the Commander.  Save for the clanking of a bit, or the clang of a spear-haft against a stirrup, or the scuffle of a quick-turning horse’s hoofs, a silence rested upon that vast throng.  Wild barbaric faces held a look of expectancy, of wonderment, for no one knew why the order had been passed that they were to assemble at that point.

Kassim caught sight of Barlow as he drew near, and raising his hand in a salute, said:  “Come close, Sahib, the slayer of Amir Khan, in accordance with my promise, is to go from our midst a free man.  His punishment has been left to Allah, the one God.”

Without more ado he stretched forth his right arm impressively toward the murky stream, that, where it rippled at some disturbance carried on its bosom ribbons of gold where the sun fell, saying: 

“Yonder lies the way, infidel, strangler, slayer of a follower of the Prophet!  Depart, for, failing that, it lacks but an hour till the sun reaches overhead, and thy time will have elapsed—­thou will die by the torture.  You are free, even as I attested by the Beard of the Prophet.  And more, what is not in the covenant,”—­Kassim drew from beneath his rich brocaded vest the dagger of Amir Khan, its blade still carrying the dried blood of the Chief—­“this is thine to keep thy vile life if you can.  Seest thou if the weapon is still wedded to thy hand.  It is that thou goest hand-in-hand with thy crime.”

He handed the knife to a soldier with a word of command, and the man thrust it in the belt of Hunsa.  Even as Kassim ceased speaking two round bulbs floated upon the smooth waters of the sullen river, and above them was a green slime; then a square shovel just topped the water, and Barlow could hear, issuing from the thing of horror, a breath like a sigh.  He shuddered.  It was a square-nosed mugger (crocodile) waiting.  And beyond, the water here and there swirled, as if a powerful tail swept it.