"That's all right, Colonel. Only winded--don't you know--never hurried so much in life. Have been in the midst of the beggars--just managed to slip through. O Lor', give me something to drink, will you?" Colonel Carmichael put his flask to the parched and broken lips. "Thanks, that's better. We got your message, and are coming on like fun. The regiment's only an hour off. You never saw Saunders in such a fluster--it's his first big job, you know." He took another deep draft, and wiped his mouth with the corner of his ragged tunic. "I say--don't look at me, Miss Lois. I'm not fit to be seen." He laughed hoarsely. "These clothes weren't made in Bond Street, and Webb assured me that the fewer I had the more genuine I looked. I say, Colonel, this is a lively business!" Colonel Carmichael nodded as he helped the gasping and exhausted man into the bungalow. "Too lively to be talked about," he said. "I doubt if the regiment isn't going to add itself to the general disaster." "Oh, rot!" was the young officer's forgetful lapse into disrespect. "The regiment will do for the beggars all right. They didn't expect us so soon, I fancy. Just listen! I believe I've frightened them away already. There isn't a sound." Colonel Carmichael lifted his head. True enough, no living thing seemed to move. A profound hush hung in the air, broken only by Mrs. Cary's pitiful meanings. "Oh, Beatrice, Beatrice, where are you?" Geoffries turned his stained face to the Colonel's. "Beatrice! That's Miss Cary, isn't it? Anything happened to her?" Colonel Carmichael shrugged his shoulders with the impatience of a man whose nerves are overstrained by anxiety. "I don't know--we've lost her," he said. "We must do something at once. Heaven alone knows what has happened." No one indeed knew what had happened--not even the lonely man who waited, revolver in hand, for the final encounter on whose issue hung the fortunes of them all. Only one knew, and that was Beatrice herself as she stood before the shattered doorway of the Colonel's drawing-room, amidst the debris of wrecked, shot-riddled furniture, face to face with Nehal Singh. CHAPTER IX HALF-LIGHT