She shrieked loudly and with good reason. Vernon's hand had shot out while he kept her attention engaged, and in a moment he had ripped the mask from her face. Head-dress and all came away in his grip, and Diabella covered her face with her hands. At her shriek the fold of the tent door was torn open and the burly Indian appeared. Vernon flung aside the mask and veil and head-dress and seized Diabella's wrists as the Indian ran forward to aid her. "I must see who you are," cried Vernon and pulled her hands away. "Maunders!" He fell back a step and into the arms of the Hindoo. It was indeed Maunders whom he beheld, shrinking back into the shadows with a furious, shameful face, startled as a trapped animal. Vernon had no time to see more, for the Hindoo made a clutch at his throat, silent and venomous. Mindful of how Colonel Towton had been assaulted and Dimsdale killed, the young man turned fiercely to grapple with his assailant. As the two men closed in what promised to be a deadly struggle Maunders recovered his presence of mind sufficiently to dash over the lamp, and the tent became pitchy dark. In that Cimmerian gloom the combatants swayed and swung and fought with silent earnestness. But the Hindoo was the stronger of the two, and Vernon felt the lean, long fingers grip his throat with vicious strength. He faintly heard Maunders, now at the door, hurriedly call to the native in an unknown tongue, and, fearful lest the two villains should escape, he tore himself away with a violent effort, crying as loudly as he could for assistance. The next moment his opponent flung himself forward and, picking him up as though he were a child, dashed him with gigantic force to the ground. His head struck the turf with a thud, and everything was swallowed up in blank insensibility. CHAPTER XIV. RUN TO EARTH. In half an hour, more or less, Vernon came to himself slowly, and opened his eyes in a bewildered manner. He was in complete darkness, and for the moment could not remember where he was or what had taken place. Gradually memory returned to him and he sat up painfully to recall details. His head throbbed with the violence of the fall, and the short, sharp struggle had set his nerves jangling like ill-tuned bells. Rising to his feet with an effort he wondered why the Indian had not finished him off, then recollected the rapid words of Maunders in an unknown tongue. Probably he had been speaking Tamil and had ordered the man not to go to extremities. As in the case of Colonel Towton, when the creature had been warned by Diabella, or, rather, by Maunders, as in this instance, the native had stopped short of actual murder. In Maunders' desperate enterprise it was necessary that he should remain on the right side of the law.