A cry of terror came from up the path, followed by silence.
"Something has happened the thief," Finnerty said. "Come on, captain!"
Again they hurried along, but warily now. Where a wax-leafed wild mango blanked the moonlight from their path, Finnerty's foot caught in a soft something that, as it rolled from the thrust, gleamed white. He sprang to one side; it was a blooded body—either a big snake or a man. Thus does the mind of a man of the open work with quick certainty.
The wind shifted a long limb of the mango and a moon shaft fell upon the face of Baboo Lall Mohun Dass. Beside him, sprawled face down, the body of a native, naked but for a loin cloth. Cautiously Finnerty touched this with his spear. There was no movement; even the baboo lay as one dead. The major's spearhead clicked against something on the native's back, and, reaching down, he found the handle of a knife, its blade driven to the hilt.
Finnerty held the knife in the moonlight toward Swinton, saying: "It's the 'Happy Despatch,' a little knife the Nepal hillmen carry for the last thrust—generally for themselves when they're cornered."
"It has a jade handle," Swinton added. "It's an exact duplicate of the knife they found in Akka's back at the bottom of the ravine in Simla."
"This is the thief we've chased," Finnerty declared, as he turned the body over; "but the sapphire is not in his loin cloth."
Swinton was kneeling beside Baboo Dass. "This chap is not dead," he said; "he's had a blow on the head."
"Search him for the sapphire," Finnerty called from where he was examining a curious network of vines plaited through some overhanging bamboos. This formed a perfect cul-de-sac into which perhaps the thief had run and then been stabbed by some one in waiting.
"It isn't on the baboo," Swinton announced, "and he's coming to. I fancy the man that left the knife sticking in the first thief is thief number two; must be a kind of religious quid pro quo, this exchange of a jade-handled knife for the sapphire."