In the natural course of his leisurely progress, equally unhasting and unresting, Gerrard was now approaching the neighbourhood of the city of Agpur, not without experiencing an occasional constricted feeling about his throat, as though he was walking into a trap the entrance into which had obligingly been made easy for him. He was surprised to find that he was entering upon a scene of desolation. The half-ripe harvest had been roughly reaped in part, but was elsewhere trampled down, and the villages were deserted by their inhabitants; or if by chance a man or two were seen, they fled with the utmost speed. It seemed as if an army had been passing through the country, and presumably it was Partab Singh's own army, since no one was known to be invading him. But why should he be moving his army about at this particular season, and in the absence of any outside enemy? That the answer to this question might prove to have an unpleasant effect upon his own fortunes Gerrard was aware, and his thoughts were not altogether agreeable as he sat in his tent during the heat of the day. It seemed prudent to put his papers in order--perhaps to destroy one or two which might be liable to misinterpretation in unfriendly hands, and this he was proceeding to do when an orderly came to say that a local Sirdar and his son, who had become separated from their attendants in a hunting expedition, asked if they might take shelter in the Sahib's camp until the sun was a little cooler. The idea of a hunting expedition was strange in the desolate state of; the district, but Gerrard hoped to gain some information from the strangers, and ordered that they should be brought to his tent. As he rose to go forward and welcome them, a low voice--that of the _munshi_ sitting on the ground at his side--arrested him. "Sahib, I cannot be sure, but I think that old man is the Rajah Partab Singh, whom I have seen once at Nanakpur. Do not betray that you suspect him, but look at the mark of the _kalgi_ on the turbans of the two."