Something moved in the undergrowth behind, and a squat little man stepped into the light. A musket was in his hand, and a grin upon his hairless face. In an unknown tongue he addressed a question to the men who held the struggling Tynan, and being regarded with a stare of mingled amazement and terror, he peered into the face of the captive. Then the grin died out of his face, for he saw the white skin of an Englishman and understood. Again he jabbered in the strange language, then quick as thought he drew from its scabbard a curved knife, whose keen broad blade flashed thrice like a heliograph as it caught the slanting rays of the disappearing sun. The sepoys had let go their hold of Tynan, and had raised their muskets, but before the triggers could be pulled the vicious kukri blade had descended twice, and the traitors sank on the sward, cut through the shoulder. Crack went the musket of Muhammad Baksh, and a bullet skimmed over the cap of the ugly little stranger. Before the echo had died away an answering report rang out, and as Muhammad Baksh paid the penalty of his treachery, a second Gurkha stepped from behind a tree-trunk within fifteen paces of Pir Baksh. The subadar turned and ran. "Shoot, brother!" sang out the Gurkha, whose musket was empty. The first-comer's weapon was already covering the runagate. He pulled the trigger, and when the smoke had rolled away, there lay the arch-traitor writhing upon the ground, alternately calling down curses upon the little mountain demons who had frustrated him, and calling upon the Englishman for mercy. Evidently he was not very badly wounded, or he could not have made so much noise. The Gurkhas trotted towards him with bared knives, and though the Mohammedan still held his loaded musket the little hillmen never hesitated. Pir Baksh was consistent in his cowardice. Dropping the weapon he held up his hands in token of surrender, and called upon Tynan Sahib to save him from the fiends. Harry Tynan had barely realized what had happened, and what a very narrow squeak he had had. "Do not kill him!" he shouted in Urdu, as he limped towards the wounded savage. He wanted to see what Pir Baksh would have to say for himself before he handed him over to be hanged or blown away. The fact must be admitted that Tynan meant to gloat over the failure of the subadar's vile plans. The Gurkhas did not understand the words, but they divined his meaning. "Sahib," implored the subadar, "save me from these demons. I spared your life, so do not leave me to be murdered." "You spared my life!" Tynan indignantly repeated. "You mean you brought me here to torture me."