THE MAKE-WEIGHT by HAROLD LAMB

* * * *

ARTHUR KENT breathed a sigh of relief as the last trick of the last hand was turned. He had been lucky. Indeed lucky, if neither of the other two players at the green-covered table in the billiard room of the officers' club had seen him cheat that last hand.

Checking up the score, Kent held it out for the others to see. His dark eyes were half closed, his full, handsome face impassive. The moisture around his eyes came only from the early evening heat that enveloped Rawal Pindi, in Upper India.

"`Fraid I'm winner, gentlemen. Sorry Captain Gerald has had enough."

The third man, a nervous subaltern, tried to smile as he wrote out an I.O.U. for seventy pounds. With a nod Kent folded the sheet of paper on the table and fell to shuffling the cards together until the subaltern had left the room.

Into the pack of cards he deftly slipped the three discards that he had secreted. He smiled, for now there would be no proving that he had cheated. Luck usually ran his way. His was a clever mind and quick to seize advantage-consequently he had made a name as political agent. True, two years ago when native under-officials had complained of extortion, Kent had been transferred from a Bengal province to the small frontier post of Dalgai, near Rawal Pindi. But here he had married a first-rate American girl with a little money.

"Well?" he observed.

Captain Fred Gerald, surgeon, attached to the cavalry regiment at Dalgai-called Daktar Sahib by the natives to whom he sometimes administered aid-took a five-pound bank-note from the breast pocket of his tunic and thrust it across the table. "I'm riding up into the gorges to attend a patient." His gray eyes hardened swiftly. "Wouldn't you better return that-paper to the young cub, and explain that a mistake was made in the score?"

"Eh?" Kent flushed as he grasped the other's meaning. "Kindly explain what the devil you're getting at?"

The Daktar Sahib counted off on his fingers "Three cards. You palmed them, you know."

A curious smile played under Kent's mustache. So he had been seen! And by the one man in the world who did not want to denounce him publicly as a card cheat. His luck was still good. He called to the one house boy who lingered near the window lattice by the table and sent him to fetch Gerald's stick and pith helmet.

When the two were alone Kent pocketed the promissory note.

"What do you propose to do about it, my dear fellow," he asked, a strained note in his full voice, "make a fuss or keep quiet?"

Gerald took his hat and stick from the boy who had returned, dismissed the native and rose. His alert, tanned face was emotionless. No one in the border station or Rawal Pindi guessed, for instance, that the surgeon worshipped the girl who had married Kent a year ago.

He paid her no marked attention, avoided meeting her in fact. The only one who suspected his feeling for Ethel Kent was the man who sat by the table before him-the man, in fact, whom he had just seen cheating.

No one better than the Daktar Sahib knew the rigid code of ethics that bound the men of the army stations of India. To denounce Kent would inevitably make misery for Ethel Kent.

The luck of the political agent still held good, you see. When Gerald started to speak, shrugged and turned away, Kent sprang up, his smile hardening. To the shifting mind of Kent it was whispered that the man who would avoid open quarrel with the husband must have an understanding with the wife.

For a long moment gray eyes clashed with black; the cold anger of the surgeon and the gnawing fury of the political agent were on the verge of being unleashed. The heat that day had been wearing. "I shall say nothing about the cards-now-Kent," the surgeon observed evenly, "for your wife's sake. I warn you, though. The hill natives have an apt proverb. They say that one who digs a pit for others will find that he has made his own grave."

Glad that the tension was broken, Kent pocketed the cards, veiling the suspicion that flamed in his eyes at mention of his wife. "You forget, my Daktar Sahib," he pointed out ironically, "the little thing called proof. Whatever your chums the hill beggars say, proof is required by the white man's law when you accuse a man. I have not forgotten that."

Gerald's deep eyes studied curiously the man who could make his way conqueringly in the world without thought of the rights of others. It did not occur to the straightforward mind of the surgeon that Kent's words were aimed at him. Because it was impossible for Gerald to conceive that any man could think evil of Ethel Kent.

"True," he nodded. "There is, however, one court that requires no proof of evil before administering justice. And that is Providence, or the judgment of God."

This chimed with Kent's inner thoughts. "Yes, may Providence or God or the devil judge between us, Captain Gerald. And may the officer of justice be whatever tool is handiest!"

Now, by one of those minute coincidences that link together the chain of life, both men started and stepped back, although they had heard no sound-were, in fact, alone in the billiard room.

Intent on each other they noticed only vaguely what seemed to be the dart of a snake out from the lattice of the open window upon the bare green table between them.

But it was not a snake. It flashed back through the lattice, leaving behind it, however, a folded square of torn, yellow paper.

On the upper side of the paper, traced in a curious, curving hand, was the name: "Kent Sahib."

THE blooming, thievin' beggar had the chit in the cleft of a stick. Pushed it in through the lattice-work, pulled back his stick and slipped down the veranda post, out into the bush before I had a fair look at him."

So said Kent, irritably, as he returned from his sally out on the upper veranda of the club. Twilight, aided by a mist of rain, had enabled the fugitive messenger to penetrate the Rawal Pindi compound unnoticed.

As the political agent deciphered the flowing Turki script on the paper, an oath came from his bearded lips.

"A dinner invitation, and a pressing one, for tonight. Also, from the worst murderer in the Hindu Kush." He jerked his thumb up over his shoulder at the lattice, behind which the curtain of rain concealed the outline of the giant foothills of the Himalayas.

Sparing of speech or motion-a trick of all old service men-Gerald took the missive up from the table where Kent had tossed it contemptuously and painstakingly read it through.

"The Kadi, Kent-Sahib, will come to the home of his unworthy servant, Jehan Khan. He will come tonight. He will be afoot, without his police. Inshallah."

"Sheer insolence," growled Kent. "Inshallah-by the will of God. I'll stay in Pindi, thank you. The Pathan, Jehan Khan, calls himself the descendant of kings, and has a nest somewhere up in the gorges that my men can't find. I might have marked it down once, but a hill native ran full into my horse at a bend of the kud-the precipice path."

The political agent was not lacking in courage. When the native had accosted him, Kent had struck the fellow with his riding crop. The blow, falling on the man's head, had knocked him down. "End over end, about a thousand feet or so," Kent was fond of saying.

He remembered it clearly, because there had been something peculiar about the eyes of the hill native. Kent did not know what it was, but from time to time he found himself thinking about those eyes-

"I am going there tonight," observed Gerald. "Fact is, I got the mate to this chit two hours ago. Only it said a woman needed my care."

"Then it's a trick! No Moslem would let you look at the face of one of his wives, let alone touch her. You don't really mean to go? You'll have a knife in your back if you do."

"Better to chance that than have a musket ball, long range, in my head if I don't. Jehan Khan invariably pays off a grudge. You see, I treated a wound of his once and said I'd do as much again." Gerald spoke lightly, while he puzzled over the duplicate messages received by himself and Kent. It seemed to be nothing more than a bit of effrontery; but long experience had taught the surgeon that nothing the Pathans did was without a distinct purpose. "Has Jehan Khan any score against you, Kent?"

The other shrugged and shook his head. Gerald's lips tightened at a sudden thought. "Has the Pathan ever threatened your wife?"

Again the hard smile came to the lips of Kent. "Ethel pretends to like the rascals that you dote on. She rides alone in the upper gorges, in spite of my warning-"

The smouldering light of suspicion was in his eyes as he watched Gerald stride away and heard him call quickly for his horse. When the Daktar Sahib rode out the compound toward Dalgai, Kent overtook him.

"Think I'll go with you," the political agent grunted, "as far as Dalgai."

"That would be best."

THEY pelted through the mud, heedless of the rain, and at the Kent bungalow in the cantonment, Gerald's sudden fear was realized. His few visits to the bungalow veranda were treasured up in memory, but this one was to endure in his thoughts so long as he lived. Ethel Kent had disappeared.

She had gone for her usual evening ride, the frightened native butler said. The mem-sahib had refused to take her groom. A half hour ago the police riders, sent out to seek her, had returned with the mem-sahib's horse, found lame by the ravine of the Panjkora River.

The Panjkora, Gerald knew, was one of Ethel's favorite haunts. He had met her there once and warned her it opened into the brigand's preserves.

The river? He knew Ethel was unhappy in her marriage with Kent. But she would not-

"Jehan Khan has carried her off," he said to Kent, who was staring at him blankly.

"The thieving dog! By God, he'll know a thing or two when I've finished with him. I'll take a company of my men, surround his eyrie-"

"Won't do, you know, Kent. You couldn't find it without guides; the Pathans would snipe off your fellows, and, don't you see, man, Jehan Khan holds your wife hostage?" Gerald unbuckled his belt, wrapped it around his revolver and holster and handed it to the trembling butler. "I fancy I'll have to accept Jehan Khan's invitation, on his own terms."

Kent started. He had forgotten the note.

"He said," Gerald summed up, "to come alone and on foot. We'll ride our horses as far as the Panjkora trail and send `em back by one of your men. That is, if you are coming." He looked at the other squarely. "If you and Jehan Khan have any score to settle between you it would be better for me to go alone-"

A low laugh in the darkness answered him. Nor did Kent see fit to discard his revolver as he spurred forward.

At the cantonment entrance a shadow rose from the roadside and began to trot beside the two horses. The shadow was that of a tall Pathan in dripping finery, a long jezail over his shoulder. This did not surprise Gerald.

The Daktar Sahib was meditating on the strange turn of events. An hour since, secure among the police troopers of Rawal Pindi, an influential political officer had laughed at a Pathan's chit.

Now this same officer was hastening-in a gnawing rage and armed, but nevertheless hastening-to obey the summons of the Pathan.

JEHAN KHAN'S name signified the Lord of the World. A pretentious title, considering that Jehan Khan's domain consisted of as much hillside as he had been able to wrest from the -neighboring tribes who were his foes-and the Tower.

That was the secret of Jehan Khan's power. Jehan Khan had won it in a hand-to-hand scrimmage with another chief who had been tumbled headlong to his death in the Panjkora. The Tower was ideally situated for an execution, and was inaccessible except to his own men, impregnable, and invisible.

You see, Jehan Khan was a philosopher. In the small Koran that hung from his bull neck he had written two prayers-that he would never miss his aim, and that he would never allow a wrong to go unpunished.

Gerald, who had met the Pathan chief, considered that the Lord of the World had two redeeming traits. He reverenced his aged father; he kept his word. He was of course a most gifted liar, but when he made a promise he kept it. Witness, the coming of Arthur Kent to the Tower.

WHEN the shadow of the Panjkora gorge closed in on them their Pathan guides made known that the two sahibs must dismount and send back their two horses.

Kent demurred, but Gerald dismounted and set the example of cutting his mount with a blow of the riding-crop. When the horses had disappeared, galloping homeward, the Pathans produced from somewhere two shaggy, miniature ponies and the white men mounted and carried on.

"You would better," suggested Gerald, who had been pondering the episode of the ponies versus their own mounts-nothing that a Pathan did would be without good reason-"rid yourself of that revolver. It might make more trouble for us."

"Not much," growled the burly political agent. "I may use it, and if I do it would be trouble for Jehan Khan, not for us."

Gerald said no more. He wished mildly to point out that the Pathan held Ethel Kent, beyond a doubt, and that the safety of Ethel Kent must be gained by mutual terms, not by weapon-play. And the safety of the woman was the one thing that mattered.

For this reason Gerald had discarded his own revolver. But Kent had a perfect right to keep his side-arms.

The political agent had the knack of shooting from the hip. He could, in this fashion, perhaps shoot more quickly than could Jehan Khan. But not more accurately.

Their ponies were threading up along a cliff path as broad as the extended arms of a man at the widest point. Afoot, or on plains-bred horse-flesh, they might slip on the damp stones and fall a thousand feet or so into the Panjkora in flood.

It was useless, Gerald found, to try to piece out the turns and twists of the way. The rain had ceased, but the cloud banks shrouded the moon, and the brisk wind that whipped at them seemed to come from every quarter of the compass.

They ascended, in time, beyond the timber line. The clouds enveloped them as their horses edged over a crescent-shaped rock bridge that gave the illusion of swaying above a limitless abyss. A stone was detached from the bridge and Gerald listened for its impact below in vain.

Gerald remembered that he had seen Ethel Kent once in the lower valley-a trim figure, hatless, her gray eyes intent on the hills that rose over the ravine like the buttresses of heaven itself. A flush under her eyes had told Gerald that she had been crying. He would have given an arm to have spared her that.

This love he had guarded rigorously from Ethel's eyes and the eyes of the world. She was another man's wife.

He wondered why she had come back to the spot. They had exchanged only a few words. She had smiled, wistfully as a child.

Here Gerald struck viciously at his boot and his horse shivered.

"Sahib," growled a voice, "for the love of God, take care. Not a year ago a man fell to his death from here, a holy man."

As the voice of the Pathan reached him there was a glimmer of veiled lightning and Gerald caught a glimpse of a mazar, a nativi shrine, close to the path on the near side. It was nothing but a heap of rocks ornamented with rags stuck on sticks planted in the rocks. On an outcropping of rock it overlooked the path, where, on the off-side, was a sheer drop.

Gerald saw, at the same time, the dark face of Kent peering at him. Then they passed around a bend in the cliff and halted. Gerald wondered whether his horse had been startled by the blow of the whip or whether there was an aspect of the supernatural about the spot.

He wondered, because he himself had had a distinct prescience of death at that moment, and Gerald's imagination was not usually sensitive to such impressions.

On foot again, they were led up a stony incline, passed by a sentry who challenged them in the darkness, and lifted to the shoulders of their guides. Ascending through what seemed to be a dense tamarisk thicket, they were hoisted into the aperture of a black structure that loomed abruptly out of the clouds.

"Long life to my guests!" said the Lord of the World, and he laughed as he said it. "Hast thou no fear?"

A torch revealed him to Gerald, a man broad of girth, his shoulders too big for his soiled coat. Yet the face under the gray turban was lean and hawk-like, and the fine, dark eyes were eloquent and unreadable as an animal's eyes.

What Kent noticed especially was the bandolier of cartridges over the bandit's shoulder, the heavy revolver in his belt.

"Where is thy father?" he responded in fluent Turki, scanning the array of bearded faces that clustered in the shadows of the castle hall behind the Lord of the World, "And where is the memsahib, my wife?"

Although the Pathan still smiled, his thin nostrils quivered.

"My venerable father," he explained, "is dead of the bite of a mad dog. The woman is here!" He motioned the two toward a room opening into the stone-flagged hall. "The meiman khanwn, my guest room."

It was a place that Jehan Khan had, or fancied he had, fitted up in the manner of Europeans. Three-legged chairs stood about in the most inconvenient places imaginable; a photograph of Colonel Younghusband, a bullet hole marking one eye, hung against the cheap print paper.

From the sofa under the portrait Ethel Kent rose, and her beauty was like a flower in the hideousness of the room.

"Captain Gerald!" she cried. She was tucking a strand of the bronze hair into place, and she smiled at the two men. Ethel must have expected her husband's coming, and the arrival of the Daktar Sahib surprised her.

He had noticed that she limped, and he kneeled to touch the stockinged ankle from which the riding boot had been removed.

"Not a bad sprain," she answered his unspoken question. "I merely wrenched my ankle when my horse threw me; I was riding near the mouth of the Panjkora ravine. But I could not walk and Jimmy, my horse, was lame too, poor fellow. The Pathans rode up then and made me come up here on one of their ponies."

"Didn't you offer them money to bring you back to our lines?" Kent demanded.

"They wouldn't. I can only speak a few words of Hindustani, and when I said that you would be angry and the policemen would punish them they only laughed."

Gerald, who had assured himself that the woman's hurt was no more serious than she had stated, turned in time to check the outburst that Kent was ready to launch upon their host. The taciturn Daktar Sahib had been thinking.

The messages from Jehan Khan had reached the club at Rawal Pindi in less than two hours after the seizure of Mrs. Kent. It was not accident that had brought the Pathan and his men on the scene. They must have been watching from one of the lookouts on the mountain slopes. Jehan Khan had prepared the messages before he had shown himself to Ethel Kent.

"Is this thy hospitality?" he rated the Pathan soundly. "A cold room for thy guests and no food offered?"

Jehan Khan seemed abashed. Under his directions a supper of cold mutton and chuppaties was brought, and a smoking blaze ignited in the brazier by the sofa. This done, Gerald asked him to order his followers from the room.

"Wilt thou share with us, Jehan Khan," he inquired, "the chota hazri?" (the little breakfast).

With a glance at Kent, the Pathan shook his head, his fingers playing with the thick mesh of his beard the while.

"Nay, my Daktar Sahib, the honor is too great."

At this Kent scowled and burst into long pent-up speech. "Dog and thief, dare ye hold the memsahib captive? Release us at once, and provide horses. Then come to the Sirkar to beg forgiveness for thy crimes, or thou wilt be thrown from the Tower to the vultures."

The Pathan's face darkened at the insult. It is not well to call a Moslem of rank a dog. His smile vanished in a trice and his eyes became hot coals. "I dare, Sahib!" Then he made a gesture as if putting aside an unpleasant thought. "Are any crimes written under my name in the book of the Sirkar? Nay. As for the memsahib, I knew not her speech and did but carry her to shelter for the night. Is that a crime?"

"Thou liest. The message written by thee proves it." Kent's anger beat impotently against the iron restraint of the native. "Thou hast a price; name it."

Jehan Khan smiled again. "A price for what?"

"My-our release."

"Has anyone said that thou and the other sahib and thy wife are not free to go?"

Kent was nonplussed. He had believed that the Pathan was holding Ethel for a heavy ransom, and had sent to Gerald and himself to arrange terms. He had come, with Gerald, because of the suspicions taking shape in his mind against the other.

"Thy message-" he repeated.

"It was to summon thee, Kent Sahib. Is the woman not thy wife? For whom should I have sent?" Jehan Khan enjoyed to the full the bewilderment of the massive white man. "Yet, since thou hast said it, I will take a small price for my pains as a make-weight." On the last word he hesitated briefly.

"Ah."

"A very small price: two thousand rupees."

"How much?" The exclamation broke from Gerald, who was frankly astonished. Two thousand rupees was barely the price of three reasonably good polo ponies.

"As I have said, rupees, two thousand. It will be a make-weight."

Jehan Khan repeated his words, and assented to Kent's swiftly framed conditions. The three visitors-as he insisted on calling them-were to be allowed to depart from the castle the next day; horses were to be provided; they were not to be followed.

"Good!" Kent closed the bargain, and felt in his pockets. He and Gerald had both come without such a sum on their persons. "I will give thee a signed note for the money." His bluster returned, under assurance that Jehan Khan would not dare molest them. "Well for thee, Pathan, that thou dost obey me. Otherwise, this." He tapped the butt of his revolver.

Long and curiously the Lord of the World looked at the white man and his weapon, as if trying to read the thoughts of a child. His black eyes under heavy brows were wolfish. Clapping his hands loudly he summoned a native and ordered writing materials brought.

When the brief promissory note was written he checked Kent when the latter was about to sign.

"The Daktar Sahib," he explained softly, "will write his name alone. Thus and not otherwise will I know the chit will be honored."

This was his way of returning Kent's compliment of a moment ago. A Pathan never lets an insult pass unanswered. Tucking the paper into his girdle he bowed and retired.

"His price was cheap enough," grunted Kent, who had flushed. There were certain gambling debts for which he had signed notes at the club-notes still unhonored. "Why did you ask that scoundrel to breakfast with us?"

Receiving no answer Kent sat down and attacked the mutton cutlets vigorously. He flattered himself he had handled the situation well. To tell the truth he was rather relieved. There had been something spooky about their trip to the tower hidden among the clouds, and Jehan Khan's eyes ... Had he seen those eyes before? Well, the beggar knew his place now.

"Is there danger?" Ethel broke the silence in which she had been studying Gerald's grave face.

"We're quite all right," snapped her husband. "You'll keep your infernal rides within our lines, I expect, after this." It was her fault, he considered, that he would have to pay Gerald the hundred and thirty pounds when they reached Dalgai. And Ethel had had no money for some time. "What's the matter, Gerald? You look like the skeleton at the feast I mentioned at the club. Haven't you an appetite?"

"No, thanks." Gerald nodded reassuringly to Ethel. "Now, you must sleep. I'll chat a while with the Pathan."

He was thinking that, according to the Pathan code, if Jehan Khan had shared bread and salt with them, they would have been safe in his hands. But Jehan Khan had refused. Gerald knew that danger threatened one of them.

SOMEWHERE a wind sprang up in the precipices of the Hindu Kush. The snow peaks changed from black to gray to blood color.

The wind added its whisper to the mutter of the Panjkora. A great bird, hovering against the blue of the morning sky, seemed to be trying to peer down into the blackness of the Panjkora ravine.

A slender girl in a tattered shawl rode an ox from the huts of the village to the spring. Dogs barked.

Heedless of the cold of dawn, the Lord of the World sat cross-legged on the summit of his tower, caressing the stem of a hubble-bubble pipe. Gerald, also, paid no attention to the chill wind, save to thrust his hands instinctively into the pocket of his drill coat. He was noticing how, over the rocky eminence on which a native stood sentry, the shrine beside the trail was taking shape. It had not occurred to him before that the shrine could be seen from the tower-top, which was all but invisible from the trail.

Patiently he had been working to make the Pathan talk. His last speech had accomplished his purpose, which was to plumb the depths of hatred in the other's soul. "Thou dost not make war upon a woman, Jehan Khan," he had said. "Yet thou didst watch for her coming to the gorge."

A direct question, he knew, would have been answered only by silence or an elusive lie. The Lord of the World puffed at the bubbling water-pipe and did not look up. "True," he acknowledged finally. "For a year have I watched the comings of the memsahib, the time when I could bear her here. As thou hast said, she will suffer no hurt."

So, Ethel was not the one. Gerald stifled a sigh of relief and waited. Silence, the patience of the white man, wrought upon Jehan Khan to give voice to the thoughts that had preyed upon him for a year.

"Hear, then, this tale, my sahib. Thou knowest I had a father who was the morsel of my life and a piece of my liver. Until misfortune came upon him and he was afflicted-aye, he was the drop of water that came to me from the river of God's mercy." Jehan Khan's handsome face was reflective, even gentle. And Gerald knew that he was telling the truth.

"When he was afflicted, my father prayed often at the shrine below," pointing to the heap of stones and the rags that lifted in the wind. "One day, for he knew well the way, he walked there alone with his staff. A rider, sahib, was coming up the trail and when my father did not run back the man struck him. An evil blow. It was only with the whip-a heavy whip-yet it caused him who was the life of my eyes to fall, and my father fell-outward."

The Pathan waved his hand over the ravine. "My father was blind. For two years he had not been able to see the way before his feet."

Gerald bit his lip, and waited. "Sahib, my father could not see to get out of the way of the horse. And the rider of the horse was Kent Sahib."

No longer did Jehan Khan blow on the ashes of the hubble-bubble. His eyes were like embers blown into life by a passing gust of wind. Gerald walked to the rampart of the tower. He was thinking of the Moslem law, a life for a life.

When Kent had knocked the native over the cliff, he had taken care to wheel his horse and ride back quickly to the cantonment. He had not noticed that the tower overlooked the site of the shrine. So he had not seen that he was observed, and he could not have known that the native was Jehan Khan's father. In fact Kent had painted the episode, in his version at the club, in colors that made it seem a brave piece of work on his part.

No matter. The death of the old hillman lay at Kent's door. Jehan Khan had taken up the pursuit of blood. Not all the gold in India would pay for the wrong. Probably Kent had not known that the old Pathan was blind. No matter.

The debt must be paid, and not with money. Jehan Khan would exact a life as payment. Gerald had no longer any doubt on whom the vengeance would fall.

"So," he said swiftly, "thou wouldst slay the sahib, when you have taken his money for his release?"

The shadow of a smile passed over the bearded lips of the Pathan.

"Did I say that? Nay, Kent Sahib is free to ride hence."

Gerald glanced over the plateau behind the tower, where a cluster of huts, fronting the pasture that nestled against a sheer wall of rock rising overhead a thousand feet or so. There was no way out of the domain of Jehan Khan except by the shrine and the trail up which they had come. This was guarded.

Even if they could overcome or steal by the guards they could not hope to escape, with Ethel lame. And they had no horses. Gerald perceived at once that flight was useless.

He reflected that Jehan Khan had not promised that Kent would reach the border alive. The Pathan's acceptance of the money might mean anything-dulling Kent's suspicions, for one. And his tale of a moment ago merely signified that he was so sure of his vengeance that he could afford to make known to the two white men the cause of it.

The vengeance would be all the sweeter, Gerald knew, if Kent was aware of its coming. No bribe could alter the Pathan's purpose. The political agent was doomed as surely as if a Christian court had sentenced him to be hanged.

And Ethel? Gerald went hot, then cold. Alone, the two men might have made a fight of it. Now that was impossible. If she and her husband were to be saved it must be done another way.

"Let the woman and Kent Sahib go unharmed," offered Gerald, "and let thy vengeance be upon me. I will remain. I am the friend of the man. Thou art a bazaar-bom thief and a murderer."

Jehan Khan laughed deep in his throat. "A brave man thou, but a fool. The beauty of the woman holds thee-not I. I have seen it."

"Then," cried the Daktar Sahib, "why didst thou summon me here?"

A direct question, that, and useless.

"Perhaps, Sahib, to witness what is to come to pass this day."

"And that?"

From below the tower came the low voices of men at prayer. Gerald heard the Allah-Akbar chant that is the dawn prayer of the Moslems.

"God is great," echoed Jehan Khan sententiously and that was all he would say. Gerald went to the door of the guest room.

Ethel came to the door and closed it behind her. She had heard his step.

"My husband is asleep," she said. "But I could not sleep. What did Jehan Khan say?"

Instinct told her that Gerald was not assured of their safety. He put aside her question by leading her to an embrasure in the tower wall overlooking the gorge. Sunlight flooded in on her, and the rarefied air brought a flush to her cheeks. The never-ceasing wind whipped strands of brown hair about her forehead.

"Oh!" she cried, her eyes resting on the splendor of crimson and blue. Their hands touched and Gerald's fingers closed on hers. She looked up at him swiftly.

Gerald's boyish face was alight, its mask of gravity gone. His eyes clung to hers, saw her cheeks whiten, and read the love that Ethel had hidden from him.

He could feel the pulse in her fingers that answered his own. He checked the whispered words that sprang to his lips and looked away. She must have known that he loved her. She did not withdraw her fingers.

Gerald had only to keep silence, do nothing, say nothing to Kent and the man would be slain, without a breath of blame to him. But that could not be.

Kent, unable to save himself, must be saved by Gerald. The Daktar Sahib had already decided that, and how it was to be done. He would have to risk his life in the other's stead. A life for a life, was the Moslems' toll.

But the knowledge that Ethel cared for him quickened every fibre in him, and the Tower became a paradise, soon to be lost, but a paradise of the gods.

"YOU see, the beggar could pot you on the return journey from a dozen places. He might even wait until we're out of the gorge, where he has an outlook over the spot where Ethel's horse fell lame, you know. Evidently he counts on me as a kind of witness on his behalf that no harm came to you at the Tower. And the business of the money payment as a make-weight was to provide evidence that he didn't intend to murder you. You see the crafty old chap even had me sign the chit, so that he could collect payment afterward."

They were seated on a tangle of rocks and thorn bushes, overlooking the pasture where Jehan Khan's followers were selecting horses for their departure. Gerald was finishing a cigarette with relish, but Kent's cigar was cold in his fingers.

The bluster had gone from the political agent. Although it was fairly cold in the garden of the Tower, his face and hands were damp with sweat. Gerald's account of what the Pathan had told had shattered Kent's optimism.

He knew what it meant when a Pathan took up the pursuit of blood. Jehan Khan was squatted a score of paces away, apparently oblivious of them but actually intent on the fear that had transfigured Kent's face.

The hand of the political agent stole toward his revolver and then dropped to his side. From the corner of his eye he had seen a rifle muzzle raised from behind a boulder.

There would never be a chance to draw his weapon. Gerald had noticed his action.

"It won't do," he pointed out, "on Ethel's account. You'll take care of her-eh-after you and she get free?"

It was as much of an appeal as he could bring himself to make to Kent. The man at his side nodded. Ethel was then looking at the ponies. He could hear her singing, under her breath, actually singing. Of course Gerald had said nothing to her about the danger, but it annoyed Kent that she seemed so light-hearted.

Why, even then, the confounded Pathan was plotting his death. He did not see why Gerald had deliberately delayed their departure until late afternoon, almost evening. True, the other had explained that darkness would cover their flight. But-the delay was torment. Neither of them could guess what form Jehan Khan's vengeance was to take.

The natives, too, had gathered on rising ground overlooking the trail down which they must ride. They were sitting in the rear of the Tower, where a steep grassy slope led down from the pasture to the Panjkora path at the edge of the cliff, the path that disappeared around the bend behind which was the shrine.

"They're coming to look at me. What is the devil thinking of?" he cried.

"We can't tell." Gerald shook his head. "We'll act first."

The cigar dropped from Kent's quivering fingers. He had seen for the first time the eyes of Jehan Khan, stripped of the mask of good-humor, and they were like the blind eyes of the old Pathan he had killed.

And with that glance Kent's nerve forsook him. There was no outward sign of this, except an involuntary quivering of the lips, and the silence that held him.

But Jehan Khan, who missed nothing, saw Kent's eyes wander uncontrollably over the hillside and the precipice seeking vainly some way of escape from the hidden menace that would threaten him before nightfall. It was already the hour of sunset.

"Time," observed Gerald, tossing away the cigarette. Edith was safely mounted on a pony. "Remember, Kent, when I make a move, ride for it. Take Ethel's rein and be sure that she goes around the turn ahead of you, because there will be no passing each other on the trail and you have the revolver. The sentries on the rocks have come down into the crowd."

He rose, drawing the other man with him, and moved toward Jehan Khan.

"Once around the bend," his whisper continued, "you'll be safe."

But Kent's stare was glassy. In his mind he could see the face of the old man who had fallen from the cliff.

He moved mechanically to the horses, and with a sudden, jerky motion, took the rein of a docile pony that Jehan Khan himself brought forward. The Pathan's followers stood aloof on the hillside, well back from the slope that led down to the trail at the cliff's edge.

"Looks like a cricket match, eh?" Gerald observed to Ethel who was watching him with strained interest, a frown on her smooth brow. "Or rather, I should say, the crowd at a Derby-"

He had drawn near to Jehan Khan, when Kent, without warning, made his spring into the saddle of the waiting pony. The political agent clapped heels to the flanks of the startled animal. Jerking its head around, the man urged it into an uneven trot down the slope away from them.

Kent had given way to panic.

But Gerald, at the instant the other acted, proceeded to carry out his part of the plan they had agreed upon. A quick thrust of his foot sent the rifle upon which Jehan Khan had been leaning out of reach. Gerald's left arm passed between the Pathan's elbow and body.

Jehan Khan was held firmly, his back to Gerald. And the right hand of the Daktar Sahib plucked the revolver from the other's girdle, thrusting its muzzle under the Pathan's shoulder-blade over the heart.

"Stand where you are," Gerald cried in Turki, at the staring natives, "and do not lift a weapon, or Jehan Khan dies." Over his shoulder he added in English, "Ride for it, Kent. Let Ethel-For God's sake, Ethel, ride!"

For the first time he perceived that the other had fled without thought of the woman. And that Ethel had not moved. He could hear the hoof-beat of Kent's horse receding down the slope.

"Do not move," he said grimly to Jehan Khan, and to Ethel, "The way is clear, now. I'll hold the Pathan hostage for a while, you know. Follow your husband."

Ethel, however, did not stir. It was not that she was bewildered or afraid. She was an expert horsewoman, and the way, as Gerald said, was open for a space. The Pathans, taken by surprise and temporarily leaderless, would be some time in cutting off the retreat down the cliff trail.

They could not shoot Gerald; he was too close to their chief. If they came nearer, Jehan Khan would be shot. The Pathan, in fact, was strangely quiet as if listening for something he had not as yet heard.

"I'm going to stay right here," said Ethel suddenly, a little break in her voice.

Gerald groaned under his breath. He had taken pains not to have her know the danger that threatened Kent. It had never entered his thoughts that Kent would leave her, or that she would not obey orders to seek safety with her husband; that she would choose, instead, to share Gerald's fate.

He had not taken into account the heart of the woman.

And then they both were voiceless. A scream had cut into the silence of the ravine, a scream that came from the bend of the trail around which Kent had vanished alone.

Ethel put her hand to her throat to stifle a cry. They could no longer hear the hoofs of Kent's pony.

Twisting around, and drawing Jehan Kahn with him, Gerald strained his eyes on a patch of the path that was visible beyond the shrine. The shrine itself and the turn of the trail were hidden from view. Minutes passed, and Kent did not appear on the patch of the cliff path.

The twilight of the hills was deepening rapidly into night. Silence held the watchers by the Tower. Gerald knew at last that Kent would not appear again to them. The man had cried out when he was abreast of the shrine.

Had his horse been startled by something at the shrine? Had Kent's fear overmastered him? Had the spirit of the dead Pathan confronted horse and rider? Gerald's thoughts were wildly futile.

"Sahib," the voice of Jehan Khan came to him, "thou art a brave man, but a fool. The thing that I foretold has come to pass and now there is no danger for thee or the mem-sahib."

It was not his speech or the gathering darkness that made Gerald release him. Ethel Kent had swayed in the saddle in a faint. Gerald caught her as she was falling, and faced the Pathans with the drawn, revolver. But Jehan Khan continued passive as before.

DURING the hours of early night Gerald rode down to the cantonments, a mute, frightened woman clinging to the comfort of his arms. The Pathans guided him as far as the end of the gorge. He saw no trace of Kent.

When Ethel had been left at her bungalow in the care of the women of the station, Gerald changed to a fresh horse and collected a party of white men to return to the Panjkora. Kent, he learned, had not been seen in Dalgai.

Kent's body lay, as nearly as Gerald could determine, directly under the Tower and the shrine of Jehan Khan. Beside the body was the pony, crushed by the fall to the rocks.

The night was far spent, and Gerald was swaying on his horse from weariness when they found what they sought on the rocks at the bottom of the gorge by the edge of the mountain torrent.

"How did it happen?" Gerald was asked.

He shook his head, inspecting by the light of a lantern the two forms that bore no sign of a bullet or any injury other than the fall. Kent's face was set, ghastly. Gerald covered it with a blanket and gazed long at the pony's head. He bent close to search the curiously pallid eyes of the beast that Jehan Khan had brought for Kent to ride.

He had seen such eyes in horses before. But this one was dead, and there was no proof of the thought that had come to him.

"The Pathan gave Kent this pony to ride," he said wearily, "this blind pony. It must have trotted over the cliff at the first turn."

Gerald knew that it had been murder, but when he pointed this out to the authorities at Rawal Pindi, they knew and he knew that there was no way of proving in the white man's court that it had not been an accident.

In fact, the Pathan tendered his note at Dalgai, and it was paid. The only thing that the white men could do, they did. When the note had been honored they informed Jehan Khan that his Tower would be taken from him.

The Lord of the World laughed, and a year later when, divested of his stronghold, he was wandering through the hills he was ambushed and shot down by his tribal foes.

But by then Gerald was on leave in America, to seek out the home of Ethel Kent who had returned to her own country, and who was waiting for his coming.