since you
accuse me of not having done so yet! And we'll let the matter rest for
the present, anyway. I'd like to get you both to the Hills as soon as
possible. These Kresneys are becoming something of a nuisance. It's
past my comprehension how she can find any pleasure in their company.
But she has little enough amusement here, and I'm loth to spoil any of
it. She'll enjoy going up to Murree, though, sooner than she expected;
and as Mackay insists on my taking fifteen days before getting back to
work, I can go with you, and settle you up there in about a week's
time. You'll see after her, for me, won't you, Honor? She's a little
heedless and inexperienced still; and you'll keep an eye on household
matters more or less?"

"Of course I will, and make her see to them herself, too; though it
seems rather like expecting a flower to learn the multiplication
table! She is so obviously just made to be loved and protected."

"_And_ kept happy," he insisted, with an abrupt reversion to his
original argument.

"Yes--within reasonable limits. Now, sit down, please, and light up.
You've been all this time without a cigar!"

But the cigar was hardly lighted before they were startled by a
confused sound of shouting from the compound;--a blur of shrill and
deep voices, punctuated by the strained discordant bark of a dog;--a
bark unmistakable to ears that have heard it once. Desmond sprang out
of his chair.

"By Jove! A mad pariah!"

Lifting Rob by the scruff of his neck, he flung that amazed and
dignified person with scant ceremony into the study, and shut the
door; then, judging by the direction of the sound, hurried out to the
front verandah, snatching up a heavy stick as he passed through the
hall. Honor, following not far behind, went quickly into her own room.

Desmond found his sun-diffused compound abandoned to a tumult of
terror. Fourteen servants and their belongings had all turned out in
force, with sticks, and staves, and valiant shakings of partially
unwound turbans, against the unwelcome intruder--a mangy-coated
pariah, with lolling tongue and foam-flecked lips, whose bones showed
through hairless patches of skin; and whose bared fangs snapped
incessantly at everything and nothing, in a manner gruesome to behold.
A second crowd of outsiders, huddled close to the gates, was also very
zealous in the matter of shouting, and of winnowing the empty air.

As Desmond set foot on the verandah, a four-year-old boy, bent