oster-father was a wise man, so to avoid further discussion he stepped
out and shut the door behind him. Thus for a minute or two there was
peace. Then Foster-father's voice rose urgently from outside.

"Open! I say open! Quick!"

Foster-mother flew to obey, and her husband staggered in, bearing some
one in his arms. "God send the boy be not dead," he said as he laid down
his burden.

It was Roy the Rajput!

"I found him quite close, frozen by the cold," he continued, as they set
to work before the fire to rub the poor, stiff limbs and force a few
drops of hot milk through the blue lips.

It was some time before a faint sigh, a quiver of the eyelids told that
Roy was once more coming back to the world; but after that it was not
long before he could sit up and tell them what had happened.

He had managed to evade the eyes of the troopers, and had arrived at the
_serai_ just after the startled party had left it; had followed on their
traces until he had lost his way. In despair he had been stumbling along
aimlessly when Tumbu had suddenly appeared. Following his lead, he had
struggled on, gradually benumbed by cold, until at last his feet had
failed him, and he remembered no more.

"Tumbu wanted Roy!" said little Prince Akbar gravely. "I told you he
wanted something."

And Tumbu, hearing his name, roused his furry head from his furry paws
and looked at his young master with his sharp, beady, black eyes, as who
should say:

"Of course I did, because I knew you wanted him."

CHAPTER XII

SNOW AND ICE

The Captain of the Escort was not over pleased to find Roy when he came
in the next morning, and said curtly that the boy, having found his way
on foot, must make it on foot, and that none should wait for him. To
this the Rajput lad made no demur. His long limbs on that hilly country
were more than an equal even for Horse-chestnut's climbing powers, and
the cold was so intense that it was a relief not to sit still on
horseback. So he raced on ahead with Tumbu or held by Horse-chestnut's
stirrup, and, as he ran, told stories to amuse the Heir-to-Empire; for
neither of the nurses was in a fit state to do more than sit tight, tied
by leathern belts to the troopers behind whom they rode.

About sunset time they arrived at a lonely shed at the beginning of the
highest bit of the main road, which they were now obliged to take, as
there was no other way over the mountains ahead of them. Here, at the
end--as p