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Seizing a sheet of paper, he scribbled a hasty note to Charteris. "If you are anywhere in the Adamkot direction, infringe our frontier and look me up," he concluded, after sketching roughly the state of affairs. "I have always heard of it as the most tiger-ish spot in the country, and Shere Sing may well stand us a hunt in return for all the trouble he has given me.

Charteris had barely time to remember the tale of Sher Singh's skill in shooting which he had heard at Adamkot before the Rani flung up her arms and fell from her horse into the turmoil seething round her. The man in the howdah received a second gun from an attendant, and turned in another direction, that in which Gerrard was just appearing at the head of the Habshiabadis.

With Adamkot secured to him, he would be well provided for when his allowance as Regent ceased in time to come, instead of being obliged to linger on as a pensioner at his younger brother's court. The Rani objected strongly to the proposal, and flung herself into the struggle tooth and nail.

I stood it for two days and nights, but if it had gone on, I swear to you I must have given in; I was pretty near mad then. But curiously enough, Sher Singh discovered the treasury for himself in an odd sort of way. You know the great tank where the lotus grows? Well, one of Sher Singh's ladies brought some gold-fish with her from Adamkot and turned them into it.

The Rani assented to this, though with reluctance; but when Gerrard proceeded to say that the first person approached must be Sher Singh, and that the Rani's peace-offering to him must be the fief of Adamkot, she refused to hear another word, and when he persisted, intimated that the audience was at an end. He took out his watch.

That's waiting for the week after next, when the Agpur frontier business comes up for settlement, and I have to be back in the Adamkot direction. Come and see me, Hal, if it's only for a talk and a smoke. Upon my word, I am des-s-s-perately lonely! Bring a tail as long as MacTavish's if you like, and we'll indoctrinate them with the science of fox-hunting.

When the river was in flood, Adamkot must stand on its very brink, but at present its sheer cliff rose from an expanse of sand and mud. It occupied the point of a tongue of high land formed by the river and a ravine, also dry, and a deep ditch guarded it at the only side on which level ground approached the walls.

There were innumerable things to be arranged when he returned to the palace, and he summoned the Rani's scribe, and desired him to acquaint his mistress with what was being done, in order to avoid the loss of time which would be caused by another personal interview. "I leave early to-morrow for Adamkot to bring Sher Singh back," he said.

For her maintenance, she received from Antni Sahib's brother at Ranjitgarh the ten thousand rupees your honour carried with you to Adamkot from the treasury, and of his grace he added to them, by way of an advance, a sum sufficient to enable her to perform her pilgrimage to Kashi."

Their elephant was descending into the river-bed, and the walls and towers of Adamkot were dominating in dusky red the landscape to their right, when Gerrard uttered an exclamation, and pointed out a small body of mounted men surrounding an elephant, who were approaching their camp from the opposite side. "From Agpur!" he said. "Who can be coming? A woman's howdah, too!