No More Learning

I was on the verge of asking Gunga Dass, but checked
myself, knowing that he would lie. We laid the body down on the edge of
the quicksand by the tussocks. It was my intention to push it out and
let it be swallowed up--the only possible mode of burial that I could
think of. I ordered Gunga Dass to go away.

Then I gingerly put the corpse out on the quicksand. In doing so--it
was lying face downward--I tore the frail and rotten khaki shooting-coat
open, disclosing a hideous cavity in the back. I have already told you
that the dry sand had, as it were, mummified the body. A moment's glance
showed that the gaping hole had been caused by a gun-shot wound; the
gun must have been fired with the muzzle almost touching the back. The
shooting-coat, being intact, had been drawn over the body after death,
which must have been instantaneous. The secret of the poor wretch's
death was plain to me in a flash. Some one of the crater, presumably
Gunga Dass, must have shot him with his own gun--the gun that fitted the
brown cartridges. He had never attempted to escape in the face of the
rifle-fire from the boat.

I pushed the corpse out hastily, and saw it sink from sight literally in
a few seconds. I shuddered as I watched. In a dazed, half-conscious way
I turned to peruse the notebook.
A stained and discolored slip of paper
bad been inserted between the binding and the back, and dropped out as I
opened the pages. This is what it contained:--"Four out from crow-clump:
three left; nine out; two right; three back; two left; fourteen out; two
left; seven out; one left; nine back; two right; six back; four right;
seven back. " The paper had been burned and charred at the edges. What it
meant I could not understand. I sat down on the dried bents turning
it over and over between my fingers, until I was aware of Gunga Dass
standing immediately behind me with glowing eyes and outstretched hands.

"Have you got it? " he panted. "Will you not let me look at it also? I
swear that I will return it. "

"Got what? Return what? " asked.

"That which you have in your hands. It will help us both. " He stretched
out his long, bird-like talons, trembling with eagerness.

"I could never find it," he continued.