Now Tarleton broached a subject which an hour or two earlier would have been unwelcome to the other in the last degree. Raynier was going on a camping expedition very shortly--together with Haslam, the Forest Officer--and Tarleton was anxious to join it. "There's precious little to shoot," was the answer, "though one might do a clamber after markhor. But it would give Miss Clive the very opportunity she was wanting." "Eh? How?" said Tarleton. "Why she'd see something of the country, and incidentally of the people." This was putting matters in a new light to Tarleton. He had not proposed to include his womenkind in the scheme. But now both his wife and their guest declared the prospect a delightful one, and as there was no valid reason against it, Tarleton, for a wonder, consented. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ It was midnight when Raynier bade his entertainers good-bye, and as he bowled along the smooth high road he found himself wondering again--and this time over two things. One was that he had spent an uncommonly pleasant evening at Tarleton's; the other that he should actually have welcomed the prospect of Tarleton's society for a matter of a couple of weeks or so, on the projected camping expedition. Well, as to the latter he need not see much of Tarleton. His bicycle ran smoothly, and, absorbed in his thoughts, he was nearly passing his own compound, when--what was that? A cry--a little distance further on--and it expressed terror. Passing his own gate he whirled straight on, and in a moment, there in the middle of the road lay a human form. But before he could dismount, another sound caught his ear. Without giving the man who lay there another thought he started in pursuit. The stripe of the road lay before him in the darkness, dim yet clearly defined. At the side of it, under the high tamarisk hedge, he made out two figures. Peremptorily, and in Hindustani, he called upon them to halt. They obeyed. But so far from such compliance affording Raynier any satisfaction, he felt at that moment that he would give a great deal to see them get through the hedge somehow, and disappear from his sight for ever. In a flash he realised that he had embarked on a very dangerous and foolhardy undertaking, as he recognised that a brace of tall, savage, mountain desperadoes were waiting to receive him, he being totally unarmed, and the road as lonely at that hour of the night as any wild peak he could see looming dimly against the stars around. A bicycle, moreover, is a desperately bad steed to fight on, but knowing this he realised at the same time that it is an excellent one to run away on, given a clear road ahead. But would they allow him such? No, they would not.