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Rh clicked. His body trembled, and he looked at the Englishman, who looked back at him.

Neither spoke. Something utterly overwhelming enfolded them. For the whirring was at once of enchanting peace and sweetness, and of a mournful, tragic, sobbing strength that was like the death of a soul.

Once the babu put it into words:

"Like the death of a soul—"

"Shut up!" Thorneycroft whispered, and then silence again but for the pattering hoofs of the bullocks.

There were few signs of life. At times a gecko slipped away through the scrub with a green, metallic glisten. Once in a while a kite poised high in the parched, blue sky. Another time they over took a gigantic cotton-wain drawn by twenty bullocks about the size of Newfoundland dogs.

Then, late one night, they reached Deolibad, They passed through the tall southern gate, studded with sharp elephant-spikes, paid off their driver, walked through the mazes of the perfume-sellers bazaar, and stopped in front of an old house.

Three times Thorneycroft knocked at the age-gangrened, cedarwood door, sharp, staccato, with a