“Bruce,” said the colonel, “it is time for you to leave us.  You are a man.  You have stood by us through thick and thin.  I can not ask you to share any of the dangers which now confront us, perhaps more sinister than any we have yet known.”

“Don’t you want me?” asked Bruce quietly.

Kathlyn had gone to her room to hide her tears.

“Want you!  But no!” The colonel wrung the young man’s hand and turned to go back to Kathlyn.

“Wait a moment, Colonel.  Supposing I wanted to go, what then?  Supposing I should say to you what I dare not yet say to your daughter, that I love her better than anything else in all this wide world; that it will be happiness to follow wherever she goes . . . even unto death?”

The colonel wheeled.  “Bruce, do you mean that?”

“With all my heart, sir.  But please say nothing to Kathlyn till this affair ends, one way or the other.  She might be stirred by a sense of gratitude, and later regret it.  When we get out of this—­and I rather believe in the prophecy of Ahmed’s guru or fakir—­then I’ll speak.  I have always been rather a lonely man.  There’s been no real good reason.  I have always desired to be loved for my own sake, and not for the money I have.”

“Money?” repeated the colonel.  Never had he in any way associated this healthy young hunter with money.  Did he not make a business of trapping and selling wild animals as he himself did?  “Money!  I did not know that you had any, Bruce.”

“I am the son of Roger Bruce.”

“What! the man who owned nearly all of Peru and half the railroads in South America?”

“Yes.  You see, Colonel, we are something alike.  We never ask questions.  It would have been far better if we had.  Because I did not question Kathlyn when I first met her I feel half to blame for her misfortunes.  I should have told her all about Allaha and warned her to keep out of it.  I should have advised her to send native investigators, she to remain in Peshawur till she learned the truth.  But the name Hare suggested nothing to me, not till after I had left her at Singapore.  So I shall go back with you.  But please let Kathlyn continue to think of me as a man who earns his own living.”

“God bless you, my boy!  You have put a new backbone in me.  It’s hard not to have a white man to talk to, to plan with.  Ahmed expects that we shall be ready for the return in the morning.  He, however, intends to go back on a racing camel, to go straight to my bungalow, if it isn’t destroyed by this time.  Perhaps Winnie has not arrived there yet.  I trust Ahmed.”

“So do I. I have known him for a long time—­that is, I thought I did—­and during the last few weeks he has been a revelation.  Think of his being your head man all these years, and yet steadily working for his Raj, the British Raj.”

“They can keep secrets.”