"What leopard?"
"The one that—that—charged your pony."
"Oh, yes, of course. But Lord bless me, man, he may be miles away by the morning."
"Come on, Gilfain; I'll give you an arm in to bed. You hadn't better get up in the morning. In fact, you'd better lie up all day to-morrow; in this hot climate a wrench like that may produce black inflammation."
"Black inflammation sounds good, anyway," Swinton thought as the young man, leaning heavily on his arm, hobbled to his bedroom.
Swinton fell asleep pondering over the proverbial thought that no man can serve two masters, he being that no man in his now divided duty. In the earl's interests he should remove that nobleman's son from the vicinity of Fräulein Marie at once. A most dangerous woman she was, no doubt. In the interest of his real master, the government, he should stay on the spot and nip Ananda's intrigue.
Chapter XV
Swinton had left instructions to be wakened before the first raucous-voiced crow had opened his piratical beak, so, in the chill dawn half light, a grey mist from the river bed still hovering like a shroud over the plain, the voice of his bearer calling softly: "Sahe-e-b! Sahe-e-b!" brought him out of a deep slumber. Dressing, he chuckled over the apocryphal sprained ankle that had relieved him of Lord Victor's company or offer of it. Passing that young nobleman's room, lamp in hand, he saw, through the open door, a very red ankle, devoid of its bandage, hanging over the bed. Swinton chuckled, muttering: "Bad patient!"
His horse was waiting, and with a rifle across the saddle he went up the hill, meeting Finnerty, with whom was Mahadua, at the appointed place.