He followed the svamin through the rest of the marketplace, watching the chosen merchants donate the best of their wares without a grumble or a whimper, as if glad of the opportunity. Westphalen tracked him through most of Bharangpur, along its widest thoroughfares, down its narrowest alleys. And everywhere the priest and his mule train went, the people faded away at his approach and reappeared in his wake.

Finally, as the sun was drifting down the western sky, the priest came to the north gate.

Now we’ve got him, Westphalen thought.

All pack animals were to be inspected for contraband before allowed exit from Bharangpur or any other garrisoned town. The fact that there was no known rebel activity anywhere in Bengal did not matter; it was a general order and as such had to be enforced.

Westphalen watched from a distance of about two hundred yards. He would wait until the lone British sentry had begun the inspection, then he would stroll over as if on a routine patrol of the gate and learn a little more about this svamin and his temple in the hills.

He saw the priest stop at the gate and speak to a sentry with an Enfield casually slung across his back. They seemed like old friends. After a few moments, without inspection or detention, the priest resumed his path through the gate—but not before Westphalen had seen him press something into the sentry’s palm. It was a flash of movement. If Westphalen had blinked he would have missed it.

The priest and his mules were beyond the wall and on their way toward the hills in the northwest by the time Westphalen reached the gate.

“Give me your rifle, soldier!”

The sentry saluted, then shrugged the Enfield off his shoulder and handed it to Westphalen without question. Westphalen knew him. His name was MacDougal, an enlisted man —young, red-faced, hard-fighting, hard-drinking, like most of his fellow Bengal European Fusiliers. In his three weeks as commander of the Bharangpur garrison, Westphalen had come to think of him as a good soldier.

“I’m placing you under arrest for dereliction of duty!”

MacDougal blanched. “Sir, I—”

“And for taking a bribe!”

“I tried to give it back to ’im, sir!”

Westphalen laughed. This soldier must think him blind as well as stupid!

“Of course you did! Just like you gave his mules a thorough inspection.”

“Old Jaggernath’s only bringing supplies to the temple, sir. I’ve been here two years, Captain, and ’e’s come by every month, like clockwork, every new moon. Only brings food out to the hills, ’e does, sir.”

“He must be inspected like everybody else.”

MacDougal glanced after the retreating mule train. “Jaggernath said they don’t like their food touched, sir. Only by their own kind.”

“Well, isn’t that a pity! And I suppose you let him pass uninspected out of the goodness of your heart?” Westphalen was steadily growing angrier at this soldier’s insolence. “Empty your pockets and let’s see how many pieces of silver it took to get you to betray your fellow soldiers.”