"Wait!" he said. "They will find you soon enough. You are not in a position to take the offensive."
Derrick swung round with a restless word. And then he pulled up short. He was facing a tribesman, gaunt and tall, with odd, light eyes that glittered strangely in the moonlight. Derrick stared at the apparition, dumbfounded. After a pause the man took his hand from the correspondent's arm.
"Don't give the show away for want of a little caution!" he said. "There are your men to think of, remember. This is no picnic."
Derrick was still staring hard at the strange figure before him.
"I say," he said at length, "what in the name of wonder are you?"
He heard a faint, contemptuous laugh. The unknown drew the end of his chuddah farther across his face.
"You are marvellously guileless for a war correspondent," he said. And he turned on his heel and stalked away into the shadows.
Derrick stood gazing after him in stupefaction.
"A Secret Service agent, is he?" he murmured at length to himself. "By Jove! What a marvellous fake! On Carlyon's business, I suppose. Confound Carlyon! I'll tell him what I think of him if I come through this all right."
Carlyon, in times of peace, was one of Derrick Rose's most intimate friends. That Carlyon, upon whom he relied as upon a tower of strength should fail him at such a pinch as this, and for motives of caution alone, was a circumstance so preposterous and unheard-of that Derrick's credulity was hardly equal to the strain.