But there was no other sign of
life.
"Stable the horses in here!" said the German; and they did so,
Ranjoor Singh dipping water out of a rain-pool and filling a stone
trough that had once done duty as receptacle for gifts for a long-
forgotten god. Then they pushed the carriage under a tangle of
hanging branches.
"Look about you!" advised the German, as he emptied food for the
horses on the temple floor; and babu Sita Ram made very careful note
of the temple bearings, while Ranjoor Singh and the German blocked
the old doorway with whatever they could find to keep night-prowlers
outside and the horses in.
Then the German led the way into the dark, swinging a lantern that
he had unearthed from some recess. Babu Sita Ram walked second,
complaining audibly and shuddering at every shadow. Last came Ranjoor
Singh, grim, silent. And the rain beat down on all three of them
until they were drenched and numb, and their feet squelched in mud at
every step.
For all the darkness, Ranjoor Singh made note of the fact that they
were following a wagon track, into which the wheels of a native cart
had sunk deep times without number. Only native ox-carts leave a
track like that.
It must have been nine o'clock, and the babu was giving signs of
nearly complete exhaustion, when they passed beyond a ring of trees
into a clearing.
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