It would be too risky to leave this pass, but I
vote we send a scout."
A man was chosen and dispatched. Two hours later he returned to the
mystified watchers at Nazri. He had been on the hill-shoulder and
looked into the cleft. There was no sign of men there, but he had heard
the sound of men, though where he could not tell. Far down the cleft
there was a gleam of fire, but no man near it.
"That's a Bada dodge," said Andover promptly. "Now I wonder if Marker
trusted too much to these gentry, and they have done us the excellent
service of misleading him. They hate us like hell, and they'd sell
their souls any day for a dozen cartridges; so it can't have been done
on purpose. Seems to me there has been a slip in his plans somewhere."
But the sound of voices! The man was questioned closely, and he was
strong on its truth. He was a hillman from the west of the Khyber, and
he swore that he knew the sound of human speech in the hills many miles
off, though he could not distinguish the words.
"In thirty minutes it will be morning," said George. "Lord, such a
night, and Lewis to have missed it all!" His spirits were rising, and he
lit a pipe. The north was safe whatever happened, and, as the inertness
of midnight passed off, he felt satisfaction in any prospect, however
hazardous. He sat down beneath a boulder and smoked, while Andover
talked with the others.
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