It is now getting on for the afternoon.

It is likely enough that no other travellers will enter the grove today.

By tomorrow, at the latest, someone will come in, and will of course go and report at once, in Bangalore, what he has found; and they will send out here to examine into it.

When they find that the men have all fallen, sword in hand, that two of them are evidently Stranglers, and that their girdles have not been searched, nor the packs on their horses opened, it will be seen that it was not the work of robbers.

I don't suppose they will know what to make of it, but I should think they would most likely conclude that these men have been attacked by some other party, and that it is a matter of some feud or private revenge--though, even then, the fact that the bodies have not been searched for valuables, or the baggage or animals carried off, will beat them altogether." By this time, the horses were ready for the start, and after looking up and down the long, straight road, to see that no one was in sight, they issued from the wood and continued their journey.