"A chance the less, I think," said Terrington. "Blood is always a Sari man's first thought, and he'll leave no time for a second." The agent's dark eyes glowered with a whole-souled malediction, but Sir Colvin, tapping on the table, watched in silence for some seconds while Terrington finished his meal. "Do you still try to dissuade me?" he asked at length. "Not at all, sir," replied the other. "I was only thinking of the escort. If they mean murder over there they'll mean it the more the more of you there are." "Why?" "Supposing they intend to go for us, they'll wait till all the passes are closed, and we're cut off. In that case they'll hardly give away their game now, unless they get a chance to cripple us." "Twenty men would be enough?" "Ample," said Terrington. "And I'd keep as many of them outside as possible." "Yes; and you might pick some of your own men for the job." Terrington's face hardened. His men were his children, and he hated to let them run a risk which he could not share. "In that case I'd ask the honour of going with you, sir," he said. Sir Colvin shook his head. "No, no!" he answered. "The Fort is your business, and it may prove a big one. Chantry is going in with me, and Langford, who's an old cavalryman, will take the escort. I've sent down word of what I'm doing, but I'll leave a fuller account with you, in case anything goes wrong." He turned with Chantry to leave the room, calling back from the doorway: "By the way, the polo's to come off to-morrow afternoon as we arranged. You're playing, aren't you?" "Yes, sir," replied the other, watching the two figures pass out of the verandah, and seem to shrink as they were immersed in the fierce yellow of the sun. Then he turned, and met Rose Chantry's eyes. She had flung herself into a long chair: her knees were crossed; her head thrown back; her hands clasped behind it. To Terrington's vision the tip of her toe, her knee and her chin were in a line; and the absurd little sole of her shoe, with its elfin instep and the arch curl of its heel, made a print on his memory in which it was afterwards to tread. "Well!" she said, with her tantalizing smile, "was the chikor good?" "Excellent," he answered. Her lips fluttered like the wings of a bird. "Didn't it taste of defeat?" she suggested, the dark lids drooping over her eyes. "No," he said gravely, "it tasted extremely game." She swept him with her covert glances, but his had fallen to her foot. "Why did you tell that lie?" she asked presently. He looked up into her face for an instant. "I've forgotten," he said. "Sir Colvin wouldn't have suspected me," she added. "He knows no more about a woman than ... than you do. "I suppose that leaves him without much knowledge to boast of?" he reflected. "Yes," she said; "it does."