“Do you think you deserve to live, Major Jimgrim?” Noureddin Ali’s voice went on.  I heard him shift his position.  He was probably trying to see my outline against the dark wall in order to take aim.  “You, a foreigner, interfering in the politics of this land?  But for you there would have been an explosion today that would have liberated all the Moslem world.  But for that lie about a broken leg you would have died a little after ten o’clock this morning—­hee-hee—­instead of now!  Don’t move, Major Jimgrim!  You and I will have a duel presently.  There is lots of time.  The Sikhs lost track of me.”

I did move.  I stooped down close to the floor, so that he might fire over my head if, as I suspected, he was merely gaining time in order to take sure aim.  I tried to see which end of the table he was talking from, but he was hidden completely.

“Do you think you should go free, to perpetrate more cowardly interference, after spoiling that well-laid plan?  Hee-hee!  You poor fool!  Busy-bodies such as you invariably overreach themselves.  Having tricked me two or three times, you thought, didn’t you? that you could draw me here to kill Scharnhoff, that poor old sheep.  You were careful, weren’t you? to let Omar Mahmoud go, in order that he might tell me how Scharnhoff had turned witness against us.  And the Sikhs followed Omar Mahmoud, until Omar Mahmoud found me.  And then they hunted me.  Hee-hee!  Don’t move!  Was that the plan?  Simultaneously then, being yourself only a fool after all, you flatter me and underestimate my intelligence.  Hee-hee!

“You were right in thinking I would not submit to capture and death without first wreaking vengeance.  But vengeance on such a sheep as Scharnhoff?  With Major Jimgrim still alive?  What possessed you?  Were you mad?  I satisfied myself an hour ago that Scharnhoff was the bait, which the redoubtable Major Jimgrim would be watching.  Perhaps I shall deal with Scharnhoff afterwards—­hee-hee!—­who knows?  Now—­now shall we fight that duel?  Are you ready?”

I supposed that meant that he could not see me and had given up hope of it.  He would like to have me move first, so as to judge my exact whereabouts by sound.  I reached out very cautiously, and rapped the muzzle of my pistol on the floor twice.

He fired instantly, three shots in succession.  The bullets went wild to my left and brought down showers of plaster from the wall.  I feared he might have seen me by the pistol-flash.  I did not fire back.  There was no need.  Something moved swiftly like a black ghost through the open door.  There was a thud—­and the ring of a steel swivel—­and a scream.

“Has the sahib a match?” said a gruff voice that I thought I recognized.

I was trembling—­excitement, of course—­only children and women and foreigners ever feel afraid!  It took me half a minute to find the match box, and the other half to strike a light.