ed
behind with Bernard.

She leaned her chin upon her hands and sat silent for a space. But
gradually, as she reviewed the situation, curiosity began to struggle
through her lethargy. She looked at Hanani crouched humbly beside her,
looked at her again and again, and at last her wonder found vent in
speech.

"Hanani," she said, "I don't quite understand everything. How did you
get me here?"

Hanani's veiled head was bent. She turned it towards her slowly, almost
reluctantly it seemed to Stella.

"I carried you, _mem-sahib_," she said.

"You--carried--me!" Stella repeated the word incredulously. "But it is a
long way--a very long way--from Kurrumpore."

Hanani was silent for a moment or two, as though irresolute. Then: "I
brought you by a way unknown to you, _mem-sahib_," she said. "Hafiz--you
know Hafiz?--he helped me."

"Hafiz!" Stella frowned a little. Yes, by sight she knew him well.
Hafiz the crafty, was her private name for him.

"How did he help you?" she asked.

Again Hanani seemed to hesitate as one reluctant to give away a secret.
"From the shop of Hafiz--that is the shop of Rustam Karin in the
bazaar," she said at length, and Stella quivered at the name, "there is
a passage that leads under the ground into the jungle. To those who
know, the way is easy. It was thus, _mem-sahib_, that I brought you
hither."

"But how did you get me to the bazaar?" questioned Stella, still hardly
believing.

"It was very dark, _mem-sahib_; and the _budmashes_ were scattered. They
would not touch an old woman such as Hanani. And you, my _mem-sahib_,
were wrapped in a _saree_. With old Hanani you were safe."

"Ah, why should you take all that trouble to save my life?" Stella said,
a little quiver of passion in her voice. "Do you think life is so
precious to me--now?"

Hanani made a protesting gesture with one arm. "Lo, it is yet night,
_mem-sahib_," she said. "But is it not written in the sacred Book that
with the dawn comes joy?"

"There can never be any joy for me again," Stella said.

Hanani leaned slowly forward. "Then will my _mem-sahib_ have missed the
meaning of life," she said. "Listen then--listen to old Hanani--who
knows! It is true that the _baba_ cannot return to the _mem-sahib_, but
would she call him back to pain? Have I not read in her eyes night after
night the silent prayer that he might go in peace? Now that the God of
gods has answered that prayer--now that the _baba_ is in peace--would my