as soon
as breakfast was over, go for a run in the garden. At first it was but
a shamble, but gradually the terrible stiffness would wear off, and he
would return to the house comparatively well.

Of an evening the practice was longer, and was kept up until the
aching pain became unendurable. At the end of four or five days, he
was scarcely able to walk at all, but after that time matters
improved, and three weeks later he could preserve the attitude for
half an hour at a time.

In other respects, his training had gone on uninterruptedly every day.
He went out into the town, accompanied sometimes by Rajbullub,
sometimes by Surajah, in the disguises of either a peasant, a soldier,
or a trader; and learnt to walk, and carry himself, in accordance with
his dress. Before putting on these disguises, he painted himself with
a solution that could easily be washed off, on his return to the
palace, where he now always wore a European dress.

"You cannot be too careful," the Rajah said. "There are, of course,
Mohammedans here; and, for aught we know, some may act as agents or
spies of Tippoo, just as the English have agents and spies in Mysore.
Were one of them to send word that you had taken to Indian attire, and
that it was believed that you were about to undertake some mission or
other, it would add considerably to your difficulties and dangers. As
it is, no one outside our own circle ever sees you about with me or
the boys, except in your European dress, and Rajbullub tells me that,
in no single instance while you have been in disguise, has any
suspicion been excited, or question asked by the people of various
classes with whom you and he converse in the streets."

Another month passed, and by this time Dick could, without any great
fatigue, squat on his heels for an hour at a time. As the date for his
departure drew near, his mother became more and more nervous and
anxious.

"I shall never forgive myself, if you do not come back," she said one
day, when they were alone. "I cannot but feel that I have been
selfish, and that really, on the strength of a conviction which most
people would laugh at as whimsical and absurd, I am risking the
substance for a shadow, and am imperilling the life of my only boy,
upon the faint chance that he may find my husband. I know that even
your uncle, although he has always been most kind about it, and
assisted in every way in his power, has but little belief in the
success of your search