But she? She shut herself up in her own room a good deal just then, shut herself up with business papers--which, by the way, she thoroughly understood. And running through all her calculations and correspondence were certainly recollections of a time spent in a free _al fresco_ life; and subsequently, in an _al fresco_ life which was anything but free, and hedged round with hardship at every turn, and somehow it seemed that that time was not the least enjoyable period of her existence. Then she would push away all the business matter in front of her, and pass her hands over her brows, and if anyone had broken in upon her at that time it would have been to see upon Hilda Clive's face a look that rendered it wondrously soft and lovable and attractive. But through it all there mingled a puzzled and half-distressed state of mind. Her strange powers of foresight seemed to hover around, and yet refuse to be called into definite action. There was something to be done, they told her, and she was the one to do it; yet what, and how? Ah, now it was clear. Money would purchase anything--even life. The first thing she had done on her return to Mazaran was to present Mehrab Khan with such a substantial sum in rupees as to cause that faithful Mussulman to stare. Then she had set to work to obtain for him a sort of indefinite furlough, so that he could attach himself wholly and entirely to her service, which he was by no means loth to do. It had not been difficult, because, as it happened, his term of enlistment had all but expired, and Mehrab Khan was far too valuable a jemadar of Levy Sowars to part with at that juncture; wherefore, through Haslam, who, as we have seen, stood her friend, and others, she contrived that the authorities should allow her the use of him _pro tem_. To what she would turn that use we shall see anon. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. OF THE SIRDAR'S OATH. The unhappy prisoner, forced along by strong and ruthless hands, recognised that he was in the alley way upon which he had looked down from the parapet, what time the shrieks of the tortured man had forced him to stop his ears. Heaven help him! To what death of lingering torment were these barbarians going to put him? There was the very door, and through it he was now dragged. The horrible greasy fumes which had sickened him before hung about the place, which, entering as he did from the light, seemed to lie in a semi-gloom, suggestive of all sorts of hideous imaginings. At the further end was something that looked like a long iron coffin, raised about eighteen inches from the floor. To this he was forced forward.