He made the offer advisedly; for he knew the man to have friends in the Secretariat; knew, briefly, that he was a likely man to have got hold--if not of the lost letter, yet of something confidential. To haggle with him, therefore, was mere waste of time; more especially as he himself had long since ceased to regard the five thousand rupees he carried about with him as his own money. So it might as well go--in a good action!--and save him bother. It did. Govind, who at most had expected five hundred, lost no time in producing the paper. Jack Raymond looked at it, then at Govind. 'You d--d fool,' he said softly, 'I don't think you'll find it worth while.' Then he looked at the crumpled document again. It was merely a _précis_ as it were, written in a clerkly hand, of what the rescinded confidential instructions might have been, such as any one who by chance had seen them--or any scoundrel who had not--could easily have written. Absolutely unauthentic, and of no possible value, as proof of anything. It was characteristic of Jack Raymond that the idea of taking back the notes which he had given Govind, as had been stipulated in advance, never occurred to him. He was a backer of odds, a better of bets. He had staked money lightly, and lost it. So far good; but he meant to have his money's worth. 'Hold up, you brute!' he said, as Govind writhed at the first touch on the scruff of his neck. 'I won't kill you, but you shall have the soundest licking you ever had in your life.' As he spoke the lash of the hunting-whip, with which he always rode, curled round Govind's thin legs, making their owner in his sheer animal terror escape from Jack Raymond's hold-strong as it was--to the floor, where he lay on his back, his limbs crunched together like a dead crab's--a hideous spectacle. So hideous that the very licking of such an abject beast seemed impossible. '_Huzoor_, no!' he gasped. 'No, _Huzoor!_ not that! not that! I will pay it back! I will pay--I will pay----' 'Get up, you brute, and take it decently,' interrupted Jack, feeling more decidedly that if the brute would not, he would have to give up the sickening business. He emphasised his command by another flick with the thong. The crumpled crablike terror gave a sort of sob, and edged itself--still on its back--till it could kiss Jack Raymond's boots frantically. 'Not that! not that!' it moaned. 'I will pay--yea! I _can_ pay!' Then in a purely insane fear of physical pain, Govind's English came back to him--'O my lord god almighty, I can give money's worth--I can give cheap--O lord god, yes! I can tell--listen, listen!' So, without a pause, he burst out into words which first made Jack Raymond hesitate, and then--catching the lash of the whip back into his hand--point to the corner and say, 'Sit down there, you skunk, and tell the truth; don't try to escape, or I really _will_ do for you.'