“Yesterday we got as far as the entrance to the Akrab Pass, some way beyond Dera Gul, and camped there for the night. The Major chose the site of the camp himself, in an awfully good position commanding the mouth of the pass, and arranged everything just as if it was war-time. I knew, of course, that he was looking out for treachery of some sort, and I was awfully sick when he told me this morning that I was to stay and do camp-guard with Winlock, and not go with him to the durbar. I yearned horribly to disobey orders, but, you see, he left me certain things to do if--if anything went wrong.” Fitz cleared his throat, muttered that he thought he must have got a cold, and hastened on. “Beltring had come down from Nalapur to meet the Commissioner, as he thought, and the Sardar Abd-ul-Nabi was waiting just inside the pass with an escort of the Amir’s troops. We in camp had nothing to do but kick our heels all day, for the Major left strict orders against going out of sight of the pass. He meant to get through his work by daylight, so as to sleep at the camp to-night, and come back here in the morning, you see. There were no caravans passing, and the place seemed deserted, which we thought a bad sign. But about eleven this morning one of our scouts brought in a small boy, who had come tearing down the pass and asked for the English camp. We had the little chap up before us, and I recognised him as a slave-boy I saw at Dera Gul the day Miss North and I were there. He knew me at once, and began to pour out what he had to say so fast that we could scarcely follow him. It seems that the Hasrat Ali Begum had managed in some way to get an inkling of Bahram Khan’s plot, and she despatched one of her confidential old ladies to warn you and the Major. Unfortunately, the old lady got caught, and Bahram Khan was so enraged with his mother that he promptly packed his whole zenana off to Nalapur, to be out of mischief, I suppose. On the way through the pass this boy, by the Begum’s orders, managed to hide among the rocks when they broke camp, and so escaped with her message. He hoped to catch the Major before he started, but, most unhappily, he durst not ask the only man he met whether he had passed, and he was behind him instead of in front. So he came down the pass, missing him entirely, of course, and warned us instead. The Major’s force was to be attacked in the worst part of the defile, he told us, and as soon as a messenger could reach Dera Gul to say that the attack had taken place, Bahram Khan would set out to raid Alibad. It was an awful dilemma for Winlock and me. It was no use sending after the Major to warn him, for whatever was to happen must have happened by that time, and if we tried to warn the town, Bahram Khan was safe to intercept the messenger and start on his raid at once, and of course we couldn’t evacuate the camp without orders. We decided to strike the tents and get everything ready for a start at