A sibilant whistle from Swinton was his only comment. The thought was paralysing.
"Well"—Finnerty sighed the words—"we'll just sit here till it's dark, and then play our last card." He pulled his belt, in which was a hunting knife, a hole tighter, as if girding his loins for the fray.
The Banjara now said: "Rajah Ananda will send out men to look for you on the trail, sahib, but if you will go east through the jungle to where there is a small path—one the sahib no doubt knows—my brother and I will lead the horses back up over this broad trail to a nala with a stony bed, and then through the jungle and back to where you wait, so that those who come forth will say: 'The keddah sahib and his friends came down and then went back again to the hills, perhaps to follow a bison.'"
"Splendid!" Finnerty commented, and added in commendation: "'To a strong man a wrong done is more power.'"
Then Finnerty and his companion cut across through the jungle. It was a good ruse, for the rajah's men, thinking the sahibs were up in the jungle, would not guard every approach.
The sun was now sinking on the horizon, and with its usual bird clamour of eventide the day was passing. Once, as they waited, Lord Victor said: "I don't believe that girl would join herself to a native."
"That's because you're in the full moon of faith, my young friend. At your age I believed in fairies, too," Finnerty said.
"Just the sort of faith," Swinton contributed, "that gives such women their power for mischief; a Prussian spy must do as she is told, and if she were allotted to Ananda, to Ananda she goes."
A shrill note that might have been from a boatswain's silver whistle or a red-breasted teal came floating up from where they had left the Safed Jan Trail. It was answered from on toward the palace hill.
"Ananda's men have found where the horses have turned to go back up into the hills," Finnerty chuckled.