as Carlin appeared on the verandah. Her eyes met
Skag's before she spoke to the priests.

"Is he worse?"

The elder spoke for both, as is the custom:

"Peace be on thee, thou of gentle voice and skillful hands. We greet
thee in the name of Hanuman; and are come, to render up to thee the
forfeit life, even according to our covenant; for thou hast saved the
wounded king, and he will not die. Behold the cloth with the shape of
the foreigner's sign in it; this we held for a token that the
foreigner's life was ours: this we render now to thee. His life is
thine and not ours."

The old man laid the silk kerchief at Carlin's feet.

Skag had thought the danger over yesterday, but he saw that the young
Englishman's life held in ransom, had only just now been returned to
the girl. . . . That forenoon was the time to Skag of the great
tension. Carlin had stood for a moment longer than necessary on the
verandah, after the priests had turned away. It was as if she would
speak--but that might signify anything or nothing. It was just a point
that made the hours more breathless now, like the sentence of quick low
tones last night, when the voices of her people were heard at the edge
of the jungle. Were these everything or nothing--glamour or life-lock?
Often he remembered that her eyes had sought his to-day, even before
looking to the priests for news.

He stood at the edge of the jungle at high noon. The city was filmed
in heat. Faint sounds seemed to come out of the sky. Skag was
watching one certain road. The trance of stillness was not broken. He
turned back into the green shade. . . . He would not delay in Hurda.
He would not linger. His friend Cadman had been gone for some days.
Yet about going there was a new and intolerable pain.

Skag forced himself back from the clearing. He felt less than himself
with his eyes fixed upon that certain road; a man always does when he
wants something terribly. Still he did not enter the deep jungle. At
last he heard a step. He turned very slowly, not at all like a man to
whom the greatest thing of all has happened. . . . Carlin had come and
was saying:

". . . I heard voices in the house this morning when you came. Someone
was listening, so I could not speak. . . . Something keeps
growing--something about our work in the jungle. I want to go to the
monkey glen again--now."

It was like unimaginable riches. There were moments in which he had
counterpart th