“Good. Let one of them throw up the rupee,” said Helston, handing it over.
A tall, hook-nosed barbarian came forward, and taking the coin, sent it spinning high in the air. It came down with a clink, rebounded, and settled. The King’s head was undermost.
“‘Tails.’ We’ve won,” said Helston, looking up. “But if they’d like two out of three, we can call again.”
But the sirdar shook his head.
“It is child’s play,” he said. “Still—a test is a test—and a game a game. We keep to it.”
And to the intense relief of at any rate two of them, he turned his camel round, and retraced his way up the tangi, followed by his retinue.
“Well I’m damned!” was all that Coates could muster.
“No you’re not. We’ve got round that hobble,” answered his kinsman placidly. “It was rather a funny situation though, wasn’t it. Fancy tossing for priority of way, bang, so to speak, in the heart of the earth. Well, Allah-din Khan is a sportsman anyhow.”
“Is he? Wait a bit. We haven’t passed him yet.” And the answer carried a potential suggestiveness, which, under the circumstances, was unpleasant.
However, such was not borne out by events. A few hundred yards higher up, the tangi widened out considerably, and here they found the sirdar and his following awaiting them. Helston said a few pleasant and courteous words as they passed, which were gravely but not sullenly, received. But the hostile stare on the faces of the chief’s following, there was no mistaking.