Amber turned pale. "That's Farrell's voice!" he cried, guessing at the truth.
Labertouche made no answer, but edged toward the khansamah's quarters.
The din subsided as Farrell gained the veranda. His feet rang heavily on the boards, and a second later he thrust the door violently open and slammed breathlessly into the room, booted, spurred, his keen old face livid, a riding-whip dangling from one wrist, a revolver in the other hand.
He wheeled on the threshold and lifted his weapon, then, with a gasp of amazement, dropped it. "By Heaven, sir!" he cried, "that's odd! Those damned sepoys tried to prevent my seeing you and now they've cleared out, every mother's son of them!"
Amber stepped to his side; to his own bewilderment, the compound was deserted; there was not a sepoy in sight.
"So much the better," he said quickly, the first to recover. "What's wrong, sir?"
"Wrong!" Farrell stumbled over to the table and into a chair, panting. "Everything's wrong! What's gone wrong with you, that we haven't been able to find you all day?"
"I've been lying there," Amber told him, nodding to the charpoy, "drugged. What's happened? Is Miss Farrell—?"
"Sophia!" The Political lifted his hand to his eyes and let it fall, with an effect of confusion. "In the name of charity tell me you know where she is!"
"You don't mean—"