e pleasant to have no questions or explanations when
you arrive, and I am sure she will carry you straight off to bed, and
keep you there, until you have quite got over the effects of your
journey."

He did not wait to hear Annie's faint protest against his leaving her,
but telling Surajah to take his place beside the cart, and to keep
talking to the girl, he galloped on ahead. He sprang from his horse in
the courtyard, threw the reins to a servant, and ran in. The party had
just sat down to their evening meal, and as he entered he was greeted
by exclamations of astonishment and welcome.

His mother had received two letters, sent through Pertaub by traders
going down from Seringapatam. In these he had told her, first, of his
arrival and of the adventure with the tiger, and of his obtaining the
post in the Palace; and in the second of the non-success that had
attended his visits to the hill forts. He had told her that he should
probably leave Seringapatam shortly, and continue the search, but that
she must not anticipate any result, for a long time.

"Well, Mother," he said, after the first embrace and greetings were
over, "I have left Tippoo's service, you see, and am no longer a
colonel, or an officer of the Palace. I have come down to spend a
fortnight with you, before I set out again on my travels."

"Has Surajah come back with you, Dick?" the Rajah asked.

"Yes. He will be here in a few minutes, with a cart. That is one of
the reasons why I came down here. I found, among the slaves of the
harem, a white girl about fourteen years old. She is the daughter of a
British officer named Mansfield, and was carried away from her
parents, eight years ago. She was the only white captive left in the
Palace. There have been other girls, in a similar position, but they
have all, at about fourteen or fifteen, been given by Tippoo to his
officers; as would have been her fate, before long, so I determined to
carry her off with me, and bring her to you, until we could find her
parents. She is a very plucky girl, and, although she had never been
on a horse before, rode all the way down, until we got this side of
Kistnagherry. But as you may imagine, the poor little thing is
completely knocked up, so we brought her down from there in a cart.

"It is something, Mother, to have saved one captive from Tippoo's
grasp, even though it is not the dear one that I was looking for; and
I promised that you would be a mother to her, until we