The Weekly Journal. — 1903-07-24 (Hartlepool, Cleveland, England)

FRONTIER.  MY  CHAPTER XIX. LX STRANGE QUARTERS.  Mara& Acfgai us in high glee. for which he had good Iftolloll. The Tarletona and Haslam he had raieassd, conditionally, on the promise of payment of a good round sum of rupees. True, the promise wawa° far on paper only, but curiously enough Murad Mani, robber and general freebooter as he was hiruselt, entertained a high opinion of the promises of the Sahibe—Reringbi intidels as they were: besides there was just this amount of additional security that did they repudiate their promise in this instance, why rises they had better go away and dwell right at the further end of India, and that at a day's notice, even if they did not put the sea between them and him, for any closer proximity would certainly prove fatal to their health. As it was the terms were satisfactory all round, for all observation had gone to convince that shrewd marauder that though it might be safe sport flaying sag burning such of his Asiatic fellow subjects who should fall into his hands, it did not pay to extend such operations to the Sahibs. They would staad robbery, hut at the murder of themselves they drew the line. So a bundohust was entered into, and for what was, under the circumstances, a moderate ransom, the British captives were allowed to return to ?dazaran. WOO they, reckoning that the Government would pay, deemed themselves mighty lucky in getting off so cheap. But Meirad Maul could afford to he moderate just then for he was standing in for a stroke of business beside which the gains already socured were as a fleabite, and this was the capture of Herbert Raynier, and the reward offered by the Nowa') for that feat. Incidentally Mnrad Afzul had other kine to milk—which in their way would give a good, rich, profitable yield. The wily freebooter had issued orders that two men should be exempted from the slaughter which had taken place of the camp scrvauts, and these two were; Bsaynier's (+Harass:B. He knew his way about, did Murad Afsal. whereupon he armed that if any man was likely to he the possessor of a considerable hoard of ill-gotten gains, that man would be a Government chuprassi. Ac- , eordingly be named a good round sum apiece, which Suet Singh and Kane Singh were invited to disgorge, and on their protesting their otter ivability to do Po. were immediately t reated to an instalment of the consequences of such refusal duly persisted in. It is carious how, even outside the covers of a book, or off the stage, postic justice will sometimes overtake delinquents, and that as a sheer matter of cause and effect now, for inatantse, as they yelled and writhed, each with a red-hot coal bound up within his left armpit —not the right, lest they should he unable to indite the requisite document authorising payment of the ransom—it did not of court., occur to Sant Singh and Rear Singh that this was aidirect result of their supercilious repulse of Chand Lail from their master's audience, beeauss they were unaware of the nature of his errand. But it is none the less certain that had that luckless trader been able to communicate that Marad Afzul and his gang of "hudmashea " were out in the district. and dacoity in fall blast. Raynier would never have ventured forth thus on a practically defenceless camping expedition, nor suffered others to do so either, in which contingency the events just recorded would, so tar, never have taken place. • • • • • •  Itsynier, awaking to consciousness, stared at the opposite wall, then at the furniture, then at the window, then clewed his eyes again. A confused medley was flitting through his clouded brain, lie seemed to see. but as if in a far -off time, the hiding-place among the mountain tops, the rain, and mist and wild storms, to feel in a doll and uneasy form of dell6C, the oppression of some peril hanging over him, bet sequence of thought refused to come. Events chased each other in wild phantasmagoria through space, a shock of some sort, a ring of shaggy fierce COURtetISIMPR and the flash of uplifted tulwars. Then, ot a sudden, his mind cleared. He remembered the runaway horse and how his last sense had been that of being whirled into space wrapped in a chilli mist. But Hilda? What of her:. Where was she Had she been found too. Was she here, and—where on earth was he? He opened his eyes wide now, and stared around the room. Yes, it was a room, but a strange one. The walls were of a dull brown