So the Khân disposed himself to sleep with the calm of an old campaigner, and Philip sat out in the warm night air waiting for the dawn. The storm had ended in weak-minded thunder and a few spots of dry rain, which had nevertheless left a freshness behind them. Here and there through the parting drifts of cloud and dust the stars twinkled brightly, making Philip's thoughts turn to a future more peaceful than past or present. He drove the erring fancies back to realities with a certain scorn of himself, but they broke from control again and again with the insistence which truth brings to bear on conventionalities. It was true that by and by time would heal the present trouble; it was true that by and by regrets would soften. There was no hurry, no thought but pity and sorrow for what was, and yet he started from a vision of peace to find old Fâtma by his side. The Khân had long since been snoring placidly, so the old matron's eyes could look into Philip's with straightforward confidence. "The _mem_ will do for now, _Huzoor_. There is no danger, none at all. But by and by, in the months to come, may God save from harm the child that will be born!" He rose to his feet white to the very lips. Just Heaven! Was this poor Belle's last legacy! CHAPTER XXVI. The old Khân's forecast proved correct in every particular. By noon on the day after the outbreak the ringleaders were safe in the lock-up awaiting trial, and, save for the smouldering house and the yellow flood of water sliding down the old channel, there was nothing to tell of the past night's work. For the dead bodies had been carried to their homes, and the women wailed over them discreetly behind mud walls, as if they had died in their beds. All save John Raby's, and that was making a dismal procession towards the nearest railway station, preceded at a little distance by poor Belle, crushed and but half-conscious of the truth. Philip, riding by the side of the litter, felt there was something exasperating in the absolute insignificance of the whole affair. It almost seemed as if some one must be to blame, as if something could surely have been done to avert so terrible an ending to what was, after all, but a storm in a tea-cup. But then neither he, nor the authorities who had to inquire into the matter, were in possession of that master-key to the whole position which was to be found in Shunker Dâs's desire for revenge. For he had worked carefully, leaving scarcely a trace behind him; and though Kirpo came forward boldly to declare his responsibility, her palpable motive for spite discredited her statements. Besides, at the very outset of the inquiry, it became clear that John Raby's murder by Râmu had nothing whatever to do with his action in regard to the water; and however absurd the man's jealousy might seem, it was certainly sufficient to explain the rancour with which Kirpo's husband had set himself to conspire against the Englishman.