"India, my dear boy—and servants; but he only half knew at that; he thought it would be the prince. I think even if Lord Victor did kill his dog, having been paid for it, had he known a sahib was the proposed victim he would have told us."
A grey, sturdy Shan pony, led by a running syce, dashed around the bungalow, and as Swinton mounted, Finnerty said: "I'll send for Mahadua right away and make ready for a peep-o'-day follow-up of that wounded leopard; we can't let him roam to kill natives. Meet me at the top of the tonga road at daybreak. In the meantime—well, you know how to handle his lordship."
Then the captain pounded down the mountain road at an unreasonable rate, though his speed was really unnecessary, for, clad in pajamas, he had half finished a long cheroot in an armchair on the verandah when he saw the form of Gilfain coming wearily up the gravelled road.
When Swinton knocked the ash from his cheroot, disclosing the lighted end, the pedestrian acquired an instantaneous limp; his rather lethargic mentality was quickened by an inspiration, and he hobbled up the steps and along the verandah at a pathetic pace.
"Been long home, anxious guardian?" he gasped, sinking into a chair.
"About an hour," Swinton answered blithely.
"I got moony lonesome," Lord Victor explained as the smoker evinced no curiosity.
"And went for a walk, eh? Where did you go—down to the bazaar?"
Even to Gilfain's unperceptive mind the opening for a sweeping lie seemed a trifle too wide. Indeed, the fact that he had on riding boots was rather against this proposition. He didn't answer at once, a twinge in his newly injured ankle giving him an opportunity for a pause.
"You didn't see my syce about, did you?" he asked as a feeler.