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“But he is a valuable man. The information he obtains is priceless. But he trades with blood. He lives on treachery. He is more subtle than the subtlest Pathan. He would betray any one or all of us to death if it were to the interest of the Empire that we should be sacrified. That, you know, in reason, is all very well. But, personally, I would sooner tread barefoot on a scorpion than get entangled in Carlyon’s web. He is more false and more cruel than a serpent. At least, that is his reputation among us. And those heathen beggars trust him so utterly.”

Steele stopped abruptly. He had spoken with strong passion. His honest face was glowing with indignation. He was British to the backbone, and he loathed all treachery instinctively.

Suddenly he saw that the girl beside him had turned very white. He paused in his walk with an awkward sense of having spoken unadvisedly.

“Of course,” he said, with a boyish effort to recover his ground, “it has to be done. Someone must do the dirty work. But that doesn’t make you like the man who does it a bit the better. One wouldn’t brush shoulders with the hangman if one knew it.”

Averil was standing still. Her hands were clenched.

“Are you talking of Colonel Carlyon–my friend?” she said slowly.

Steele turned sharply away from the wide gaze of her grey eyes.

“I hope not, Miss Eversley,” he said. “The man I mean is not fit to be the friend of any woman.”

VIII

THE STRANGER ON THE VERANDA

It was to all outward seeming a very gay crowd that assembled at the club-house on the following night for the first dance of the season. For some unexplained reason sentries had been doubled on all sides of the Camp, but no one seemed to have any anxiety on that account.

“We ought to feel all the safer,” laughed Mrs. Raymond when she heard. “No one ever took such care of us before.”

“It must be all rot,” said Derrick who had arrived the previous evening in excellent spirits. “If there were the smallest danger of a rising you wouldn’t be here.”

“Quite true,” laughed Mrs. Raymond, “unless the road to Fort Akbar is considered unsafe.”

“I never saw a single border thief all the way here!” declared Derrick, departing to look for Averil.

He claimed the first waltz imperiously, and she gave it to him. She was the prettiest girl in the room, and she danced with a queenly grace of movement. Derrick was delighted. He did not like giving her up, but Steele was insistent on this point. He had made Derrick’s acquaintance in the Frontier campaign of a year before, and he parted the two without scruple, declaring he would not stand by and see a good chap like Derrick make a selfish beast of himself on such an occasion.

Derrick gave place with a laugh and sought other partners. In the middle of the evening Toby Carey strolled up to Averil and bent down in a conversational attitude. He was not dancing himself. She gave him a somewhat cold welcome.

After a few commonplace words he took her fan from her hand and whispered to her behind it:

“There’s a fellow on the veranda waiting to speak to you,” he said. “Calls himself a friend.”

Her heart leapt at the murmured words. She glanced hurriedly round. Everyone in the room was dancing. She had pleaded fatigue. She rose quietly and stepped to the window, Toby following.

She stood a moment on the threshold of the night and then passed slowly out. All about her was dark.

“Go on to the steps!” murmured Toby behind her. “I shall keep watch.”

She went on with gathering speed. At the head of the veranda-steps she dimly discerned a figure waiting for her, a figure clothed in some white, muffling garment that seemed to cover the face. And yet she knew by all her bounding pulses whom she had found.