“Cheerio,” said Forsyth as he went off. “Hope you’ll enjoy the family vault as much as I have. I’ve taken some photos, and I don’t believe any one ever comes here except, perhaps, once a month or so.” Payindah and I settled down to our monotonous watch, and nothing moved before us save the obscene birds. CHAPTER IX A LADY JOINS US Payindah took first shift, while I settled myself into a corner of the rock below him with a pocket edition of Browning, which I generally carry when travelling. It is an old friend that has solaced many a lonely hour and many a lonely place. I had been reading for about three quarters of an hour--I remember the poem was “One Word More”--when Payindah gave a low hiss. I looked up and saw he had turned his head round. “There’s some one in the gate,” he said. I slipped the book into my pocket, climbed up beside him, and stared out across the open space, but saw nothing. “Where?” I asked. “Something moved in the third loophole. There it is again! Look!” I gazed through the glasses, and then just caught a faint flicker. It might have been anything--a man’s hand, a flutter of cloth; but something certainly moved in the shadow of the arrow-slit. We crouched there silently for perhaps ten minutes, and nothing more happened. Then suddenly Payindah spoke, and I saw his rifle slip forward. “Sahib, the gate opens; the little one on the right there.” I looked, and, as he said, there was a growing shadow as if it was being opened slowly. Then the chink widened, the gate opened, and two figures stumbled out. I say “stumbled,” for they gave me the impression of being pushed out. The gate swung to behind them noiselessly. The leading figure was that of an old man with long white beard and white locks. His arms were bound behind his back, and he moved slowly, walking rather oddly, as though something dragged at his feet. But the second figure was that of a woman, young and white, with a mass of auburn hair. She, too, had her hands bound behind her. The old man tripped, and I saw the girl all but fall. Then they moved forward a few slow paces and stopped. Then again onward, and now I realized, as I watched through my glasses, why they stumbled. Their movement seemed constrained, and it was only as they came over a little rise that I grasped the fact that they were shackled together, left ankle to right. I heard Payindah’s guttural grunt behind me. “Who be these swine that maltreat an old man and a woman like that, turning them out of the gates stripped and bound?” A few more yards and the old man halted, looking dazedly up at the sky. Then he moved forward once more, the girl stepping jerkily at his side. Again he checked and swayed, and then I saw the girl bend toward him and evidently say something. I think she was urging him to another effort. Poor soul; I suppose they thought they might yet escape.