Page:Harold Lamb--Marching Sands.djvu/176

 "Ram Singh is dead."

"The others?"

"Killed. I do not think that Mary was killed."

Gray drew a deep breath and was silent. From the knoll the hunters watched intently.

"I will tell you what happened." Sir Lionel drew his hand across his eyes. "The sun—I'm rather badly done up. No food for two days. No" as Gray started to rise. "I'm not hungry."

He lay back on the sand with closed eyes. His face was strained with the effort he made to speak. Yet what he said was uttered clearly, with military brevity.

"The night after we sighted the camel tracks we were attacked in force. I think that was four nights ago. There was a crescent moon. Of course I had stationed sentries. They gave the alarm. There was a brisk action."

"Who attacked you?"

"Ram Singh said they might have been a party of wandering Kirghiz. We did not see them clearly in the bad light. Peculiar thing. They seemed to be afoot. When they beat a retreat, after exchanging shots, we looked over the ground. No footprints. Only camel tracks. And they carried off their wounded."

Gray wondered briefly if Sir Lionel's mind had been affected by the sun. But the Englishman spoke rationally. Moreover, Mirai Khan had been