"Commander Sahib," Bootea began, "yonder man,"--and she pointed a slim hand toward Barlow--"is not an Afghan, he is a Sahib." This startling announcement filled the room with cries of astonishment and anger; _tulwars_ flashed. Barlow shivered; not because of the impending danger, for he had accepted the roll of the dice, but at the thought that Bootea was betraying him, that all she had said and done before was nothing--a lie, that she was an accomplice in this murder of the Chief, and was now giving the Pindaris the final convincing proof, the reason. To deny the revelation was useless; they would torture him, and he was to die anyway; better to die claiming to be a _messenger_ from the British rather than as one sent to murder the Chief. Kassim bellowed an order subduing the tumult; then he asked: "What art thou, a Patan, or as the woman says, an Englay?" "I am a Sahib," Barlow answered; "a Captain in the British service, and came to your Chief with a written message of friendship." Kassim pointed to the blood on the floor: "Thou wert a good messenger, infidel; thou hast slain a follower of the Prophet." But Bootea raised a slim hand, and, her voice trembling with intensity, cried: "Commander, Amir Khan was not slain with the dagger, he was killed by the _towel_. Look you at his throat and you will see the mark." "Bismillah!" came in a cry of astonishment from the Commander's throat, and the marble walls of the _Surya-Mahal_ (room of audience) echoed gasps and curses. Kassim himself had knelt by the dead Chief, and now rising, said: "By Allah! it is true. That dog--" his finger was thrusting like a dagger at Barlow. But Bootea's clear voice hushed the rising clamour: "No, Commander, the sahibs know not the thug trick of the _roomal_, and few thugs could have overcome the Chief." "Who then killed him--speak quick, and with the truth," Kassim commanded. He was interrupted by one of Hunsa's guards, crying: "Here, where go you--you had not leave!" And Hunsa, who had turned to slip away, was jerked back to where he had stood. "It is that one," Bootea declared, sweeping a hand toward Hunsa. "About his waist is even now the yellow-and-white _roomal_ that is the weapon of Bhowanee. With that he killed Amir Khan. Take it from him, and see if there be not black hairs from the beard of the Chief in its soft mesh." "By the grace of Allah it is a truth!" the Commander ejaculated when the cloth passed to him had been examined. "It is a revelation such as came to Mahomet, and out of the mouth of a woman. Great is Allah!" "Will the Commander have Hunsa searched for the paper the Sahib has spoken of?" Bootea asked. "In his turban--" Kassim commanded--"in his turban, the nest of a thief's loot or the hiding-place of the knife of a murderer. Look ye in his turban!"