the scenery contrasted strongly with that of Ceylon, with its masses
of green foliage, with hills rising behind.

For the last fortnight, Mrs. Holland had been somewhat depressed. Now
that the voyage was nearly over, the difficulties of the task before
her seemed greater than they had done when viewed from a distance, and
she asked herself whether, after all, it would not have been wiser to
have waited another two or three years, until Dick had attained
greater strength and manhood. The boy, however, when she confided her
doubts to him, laughed at the idea.

"Why, you know, Mother," he said, "we agreed that I had a much greater
chance, as a boy, of going about unsuspected, than I should have as a
man. Besides, we could never have let Father remain any longer,
without trying to get him out.

"No, no, Mother, you know we have gone through it over and over again,
and talked about every chance. We have had a first-rate voyage, and
everything is going on just as we could have wished, and it would
never do to begin to have doubts now. We have both felt confident, all
along. It seems to me that, of all things, we must keep on being
confident, at any rate until there is something to give us cause to
doubt."

On the following morning, they landed in a surf boat, and were
fortunate in getting ashore without being drenched. There was a rush
of wild looking and half-naked natives to seize their baggage; but
upon Mrs. Holland, with quiet decision, accosting the men in their own
language, and picking out four of them to carry the baggage up, to one
of the vehicles standing on the road that ran along the top of the
high beach, the rest fell back, and the matter was arranged without
difficulty.

After a drive of twenty minutes, they stopped at a hotel.

"It is not like a hotel, Mother," Dick remarked, as they drew up. "It
is more like a gentleman's house, standing in its own park."

"Almost all the European houses are built so, here, Dick, and it is
much more pleasant than when they are packed together."

"Much nicer," Dick agreed. "If each house has a lot of ground like
this, the place must cover a tremendous extent of country."

"It does, Dick; but, as every one keeps horses and carriages, that
does not matter much. Blacktown, as they call the native town, stands
quite apart from the European quarter."

As soon as they were settled in their rooms, which seemed to Dick
singularly bare and unfurnished, mother and son went