Ah! that was better! The room did not seem quite so dreary after the whisky and soda! Then he took another, and after that the outlook itself seemed less dreary, and he told himself that Dan had been right in saying that he, George, did not know the temptation of stimulants. Temptation?--if they brought you up to your bearings with a round turn in this fashion--Why! he felt twice the man he had been five minutes ago. Now he could think; now he could reason; now he could see clearly and decide what ought to be done. To begin with, she was safe. Those papers, joined to little Azîzan's confession of having stolen the Ayôdhya pot, made it quite impossible to prove she had ever known about the jewels. As for himself, that did not matter; though, as a fact, he was quite as safe as Dan. That is to say, the palace devils might raise a scandal, but the breakdown of their case in regard to her would show it was no more than revenge for their failure; for they would fail, of course. So far, nothing had happened. There was no water in the overflow cut; he had made sure of that as he rode along. And now that he was on the spot he could do quite as much, off his own bat, to prevent treachery as any one--the Colonel and all the Department to boot--could have done had he reported the whole affair. To-morrow the guard would be changed, and doubled to provide against any violent attempt; an unlikely event, as such an assault would take time, and he meant to pitch his tent down at the sluice so as to be on the spot at night, and during the day he could watch from the bungalow. Against other and more stealthy treachery he was also provided absolutely--so absolutely that he gave a short laugh as he drew a couple of Chubb's keys and a lock from his wallet. That would puzzle them if they came thinking they had hit on the old fastening. But that also was for to-morrow; there remained only to-night. No! not to-night; since already it was past one o'clock. What wonder that he was tired--did any one in the wide world know or care how tired? He stood up sharply, every vein tingling now; his whole mind aglow despite his weariness. He must have something to eat first, of course--his very determination insisted on that; but not from those plague-stricken purlieus out yonder--cautious civilisation insisted on that. There must be biscuits or something of that sort in the cupboard, and as he crossed over to it the memory of his raid while _she_ slept among the red cushions returned to make him laugh again. 'And when she went there The cupboard was bare.' The childish doggerel fitted the occasion and left him smiling at some ship's biscuit--the last resource by sea or land--left at the bottom of a tin. Dan certainly _was_ a bad housekeeper. The comedy of his disappointment struck him; the tragedy, needing the sequel to develop it, remained invisible like a photograph in film-embryo.