"I can't examine Wargrave properly here. He seems to be wounded in two places. But I hope it's not—I mean, I think he'll pull through. His pulse is getting stronger. I've put a first dressing on; and I think we can move him. Hi! stretcher idher lao. (Bring the stretcher here!)"
Suddenly Wargrave opened his eyes and looked up in the doctor's face.
"Is that you, Macdonald?" he asked dreamily. "Never mind me; I'm all right. Go to poor Ashraf Khan. If he must die, at least give him something to put him out of his misery. I can wait."
His voice trailed off, and he relapsed into unconsciousness. Ordering him to be carried away the doctor, after a word with the Indian officers, entered the barrack-room. It was useless. Ashraf Khan had just died.
The crowd fell back in a wide circle to let the two hospital orderlies bring up the stretcher for Wargrave and, as they did, left a group of men standing isolated in the centre. All of these were armed, except one whose hands were pinioned behind his back. His head was bare, his face bruised and bleeding, and his uniform nearly torn off his body. It needed no telling that he was the murderer.
Miss Benson walked up to him with fierce eyes.
"You dog!" she cried bitterly in Urdu.
The man who had smiled defiantly when the hands of his raging comrades were seeking to tear the life out of his body and had shouted out his crime in their faces, cowered before the anger in the flaming eyes of this frail girl. He shrank back between his guards. The sepoys looking on howled like hungry wolves and, as Mrs. Dermot drew the girl back, made a rush for the murderer. The men of the guard faced them with levelled bayonets and ringed their prisoner round; and the sepoys fell back sullenly.
Suddenly a shrill voice cried in Hindustani:
"Make way! Make way there! What has happened?"