"I wish I had not to leave you alone."
"You will be back directly, and I shall be all right," she said, pausing in her closing of the door, for Tara had already passed down the stair with her bundle.
"Shall I lock it outside?" he began. Tara and he had been used to do so in those first days when they left her.
She laid her hand lightly on his arm. "Don't," she said, "don't get anxious about me again. What can happen in half an hour?"
He heard her slip the catch on the staple, however, before he ran downstairs. He was to take a different road to the Delhi gate from the quiet, more devious alleys which Tara would choose in her character of poor spinner carrying her raw stuff home. She was to await his arrival, to deposit the bundle somewhere close to the third door in the back lane by the cloth merchant's shop, leaving it to him to take inside, as if he were one of the caravan; this plan insuring two things--immunity from notice in the streets, and also in the yard. But, as Tara would be longer than he by a few minutes in reaching the tryst, he purposely went through a bit of the Thunbi Bazaar to hear what he could of the explosion. He was surprised--a trifle alarmed--at the excitement. Crowds were gathered round many of the balconies, talking of spies, swearing that half the court was in league with the Ridge, and that, after all, Abool-Bukr might not have a wild-goose chase.
"There will be naught but slops and slaps for him in my information, I'll swear," said one with a laugh. "I'll back old Mother Sobrai to beat off a dozen princes."
"And blows and bludgeons in mine," chuckled another. "I chose the house of Bahâdur, the single-stick player."
And as, having no more time to lose, he cut across gateward, he saw down an alley a mob surging round Ahsan-Oolah, the physician's, house, and heard a passerby say, "They have the traitor safe." It made him vaguely uneasy, since he knew that when once the talk turns on hidden things, people, not to be behindhand in gossip, rake up every trivial doubt and wonder.
Still there was a file of bullocks waiting by the cloth merchant's as arranged. And as he passed into the lane a dim figure, scarce seen in the dark, slipped out of the further end. And there was the bundle. He caught it up as if it belonged to him, and after knocking gently at the third door, pushed it open, knowing that he must show no hesitation. He found himself in a sort of outhouse or covered entrance, pitch dark save for a faintly lighter square showing an outlet, doubtless into the yard beyond. He moved toward it, and stumbled over something unmistakably upon the floor. A man! He dropped the bundle promptly to be ready in case the sleeper should be a stranger. But there was no movement, and he kneeled down to feel if it was Tiddu. A Bunjârah I--that was unmistakable at the first touch--but the limpness was unmistakable too. The man was dead--still warm, but dead! By all that was unlucky!--not Tiddu surely! With the flint and steel in his waist-cloth, he lit a tuft of cotton from the bundle as a torch.
It was Jhungi!--Jhungi, with a knife in his heart!