Captain Dering, who with the others had now reached the centre, waited for the roar to subside a little, and then his voice rose and seemed to crush it.
"Risaldar-sahib You have the key of the padlock. Take out the tampion, and see who is inside."
As he spoke, his eyes were on the assistants, and something in their defiant assurance warned him that he was on the wrong tack, and made him cover possible discomfiture with the words,--"If there is no one, then someone here has the art of throwing his voice where he will."
As if in assent, the muffled blessing came, louder, this time, from the now un-tampioned gun, so that Roshan's face showed somewhat scared, as, with a salute, he announced as the result of his inspection, "There is no one, sir, I can see clear down the metal, but--but the voice is there."
A sound of such fierce approval ran through the crowd who were within hearing, that Captain Dering saw instantly that it would not be wise to court another failure.
"Close up the gun again," he said loudly. "So long as my orders are not disobeyed, and people keep their bodies out of my gun, their voices are welcome to it! Come along, Carlyon," he added, in English, "it's ventriloquism, of course, and I'd dearly like to catch the beast who does it, but we had better leave it alone for the present."
Lance, who, in sudden remembrance of the sound he had heard as he drifted past the bathing-steps in his canoe on the night of the dance, had been vainly overhauling the padlock and chain for signs of their having been tampered with, nodded his head, and let the chain swing back on its staple. The sudden jerk threw a new light on the matter. For the staple came out, disclosing the fact that it had been neatly filed through at the shank, and then replaced by means of a drilled hole and a pin.
The proof of tampering was clear, but nothing else.
"I have it," said Lance suddenly coming up with a red but triumphant face from a prolonged inspection down the huge muzzle, "they've shoved in a false end, and there's someone behind. Roshan! go back and fetch me my long gaff, and Roshan--my cleaning rod."
"And tell the guard to come out at once," added Captain Dering, heedful of the rising note of movement amongst the crowd, sign that it was growing restless.