I
began talking again in a normal voice, saying anything at all, peering
about into the shadows meanwhile. But it was several seconds before I
made out what the Sikh's keener eyes had detected instantly, and Jeremy
saw it before I did.
There was a magnolia shrub about ten paces away from us, casting a
shadow so deep that the ground it covered looked like a bottomless
abyss. But nevertheless, something bright moved in it--perhaps the
sheen of that lone light in an upper window reflected on a knife-hilt or
a button--something that moved in time to a man's breathing.
If there was a certainty in the world it was that somebody who had no
right to be there was lurking in that shadow, and he was presumably up
to mischief. On the other hand, I had absolutely no right in that place
either. Jeremy and Narayan Singh, being both in the British Army, were
liable to be disciplined, and I might be requested to leave the country,
if we should happen to blunder and tree the wrong 'possum, revenge being
more than usually sweet to the official disturbed in the pursuit of
unauthorized "diplomacy." It might even be some clandestine love
affair.
So I took each of my companions by the arm, gripping Jeremy's
particularly tightly, and started forward, whispering an explanation
after we had turned the corner of the building.
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