"Let me pass, fool!" shouted Philip, struggling to get at the door. But Afzul was his match in strength, and, even as he resisted, found time for words. "Listen, _Huzoor!_ If it is the money, let it go. I have here in my pocket something that will put more money into the _mem's_ hand. So you can have her and the money too." "Are you mad? Let me pass, I say, or it will be the worse for you!" "For you, _Huzoor_. There is danger; the men mean fight, but if Raby _sahib_ has none to back him, he will choose prudence. He wrought the evil--I will not stir, _sahib_, till you have listened--he wrought the evil, let him bear the loss. You--" Philip gave one glance round for other means of escape; then the breathless hurry of the last few moments left his voice and manner. "Stand back, Afzul," he said quietly, "or I'll fire. One,--two,--three!--" An instant's pause, and the hand on the trigger wavered. Something, the memory of those days and nights in the smoky cave, perhaps, came between Philip and the wrist he aimed at, for the ball struck the door below it, splintering the wood. But that waver, slight though it was, caught the Pathan's quick eye. He threw up his arm with a laugh of malicious triumph. "We are quits, _Huzoor!_ We have both been fools before the other's bravery; that is the end, the end at last!" The meaning of his words, even the words themselves, were lost on Philip, who was already down the verandah steps, his head, as he ran, bent low to save himself from being blinded by the swirl of dust which now swept past continuously. Afzul scowled after the retreating figure. "Fool!" he muttered between his teeth. "But I have done with him now--done with everything save this accursed letter. I wish I had sent it to the _mem_ at first. It belongs to her, and she is the best of the bunch." So muttering he made his way to the verandah, and raising the bamboo screen looked into the drawing-room. Belle, crushed to a dull endurance by the consciousness of her own impotence to aid; nay more, with the very desire to help killed by the awful knowledge that both those men had flung her aside as something beneath their manhood, had thrown herself face downward on the sofa, where she lay with clenched hands, striving to regain some power of thought or action; yet in the very effort driving herself to greater helplessness by her wild insistence that time was passing, that she must decide, must do something. "_Huzoor!_" She started to her feet, and found Afzul beside her with outstretched hand. The sight, by rousing a physical fear, brought back the courage which never failed her at such times. "Well?" she asked boldly. "I am not come to hurt you, _Huzoor_, but to give you this. It belongs to you." She put out her hand mechanically, and took a small package done up, native fashion, in a bit of old brocade. "Mine! what is it?" she asked in a dull tone.