dreadfully, horribly
uncomfortable?"

"Not half so uncomfortable as you'll find yourself here at Toloo in a
few days, Emmie," her husband put in, grimly. "The rains will soon be
on, lass; and when the rains are on, by all accounts, they're precious
heavy hereabouts--rare fine rains, so that a man's half-flooded out of
his bed o' nights--which won't suit YOU, my lady."

The poor little woman clasped her twitching hands in feeble agony. "Oh,
Ivor, how dreadful! Is it what they call the mongoose, or monsoon, or
something? But if they're so bad here, surely they'll be worse in the
hills--and camping out, too--won't they?"

"Not if you go the right way to work. Ah'm told it never rains t'other
side o' the hills. The mountains stop the clouds, and once you're
over, you're safe enough. Only, you must take care to keep well in the
Maharajah's territory. Cross the frontier t'other side into Tibet,
an' they'll skin thee alive as soon as look at thee. They don't like
strangers in Tibet; prejudiced against them, somehow; they pretty well
skinned that young chap Landor who tried to go there a year ago."

"But, Ivor, I don't want to be skinned alive! I'm not an eel, please!"

"That's all right, lass. Leave that to me. I can get thee a guide, a
man that's very well acquainted with the mountains. I was talking to a
scientific explorer here t'other day, and he knows of a good guide who
can take you anywhere. He'll get you the chance of seeing the inside of
a Buddhist monastery, if you like, Miss Wade. He's hand in glove with
all the religion they've got in this part o' the country. They've got
noan much, but at what there is, he's a rare devout one."

We discussed the matter fully for two or three days before we made up
our minds. Lady Meadowcroft was undecided between her hatred of dulness
and her haunting fear that scorpions and snakes would intrude upon our
tents and beds while we were camping. In the end, however, the desire
for change carried the day. She decided to dodge the rainy season by
getting behind the Himalayan-passes, in the dry region to the north of
the great range, where rain seldom falls, the country being watered only
by the melting of the snows on the high summits.

This decision delighted Hilda, who, since she came to India, had fallen
a prey to the fashionable vice of amateur photography. She took to it
enthusiastically. She had bought herself a first-rate camera of the
latest scientific pattern at Bombay,