Page:Oriental Stories v01 n01 (1930-10).djvu/82

 Mahbub rose swiftly, all traces of his weariness apparently forgotten, and left the Khana.

Trowbridge looked somberly after his departing form as he telephoned for the doctor. He had wondered not a little how Mahbub had managed to bring in his countryman a prisoner without bloodletting.

Yet he had himself seen that Kundoo was unharmed, though he was sluggish, seemingly with no mind of his own. His brows knit into a frown as he thought of that even greater task he had but now set for his underling. It would be a calamity indeed if, after such an epic chase, the wily Kundoo should go free for lack of positive evidence or through the efforts of lying paid witnesses.

He half wished that Kundoo had gone beyond the border in that grim, long-drawn-out pursuit. Had he done so, Mahbub would have returned alone and the Empire would have been saved the cost and trouble of a trial. That Mahbub would have dealt hill justice to Kundoo before he turned back Trowbridge was as sure as he was of Kundoo's guilt.

The little doctor bustled in, pompous as a bantam cock, and after a few desultory words with the Commissioner, passed from Trowbridge's sight. Trowbridge gave strict orders for all to keep away from Kundoo's cell; then, as an afterthought, he ordered them to admit Mahbub, whom they all knew, at any time he might choose to come. Those matters attended to, he hurried out and was immediately immersed in the multiplicity of routine that made of him the most overworked official, perhaps, in all that populous district.

awoke slowly from his drugged sleep as the shadows lengthened in the evening. He gazed stupidly about him at the clean bare room, the narrow bed on which he lay, the high window with its dose-set grating. Hazily he remembered the caravanserai where he had talked with the stranger countryman. That one seemed overjoyed at meeting one from his own valley, he had retailed all the petty gossip of the high hills and, best of all, had insisted on paying the reckoning.

Though Kundoo had cared little for the other's news or his company, yet he was not one to refuse free entertainment. Kundoo's financial standing, always precarious, was just now even more so than usual. A little affair that had promised well in the beginning had in the doing turned out quite the reverse. Jewels and money—much money—he had thought to obtain through it. Instead, he got a beggarly handful of silver for his trouble and had, in addition, been forced to leave precipitately for other parts. Kundoo was beginning to think that perhaps his sudden flight had been ill-advised. He should have stayed and faced it out instead of running. Reluctantly he was beginning to feel that the pursuit he had so dreaded was only a figment of his own imagination after all.

The closer he neared the border the more sure he was that his entire course in the affair had been wrong, and he had turned back before he reached it. There were other unsettled matters beyond that border that counseled prudence, matters more serious than the one from which he fled. No, they were not greater, but justice over there was a personal matter and it was swift and sure. On sober second thought Kundoo had decided to retrace his steps.

If he had been followed, a fact that he now doubted quite as strongly as he had believed in it before, his devious doublings and turnings must assuredly O. S.—5