al feel that I am able to do
something for myself, and that I have other friends as powerful. He aims
at obtaining too much ascendency over me. I do not like it."

"Oh--if you look at it in that light, I have nothing to say. It has been
a very pleasant and interesting excursion to me, and I am rather glad I
only broke that fellow's arm instead of killing him, as you and Shere
Ali did your sowars."

"I don't know whether I killed him. I suppose I did. Poor fellow.
However, he would certainly have killed me."

"Of course. No use crying over spilt milk," I answered.

So we got into the doolies and swung away. As we neared Simla my
friend's spirits rose, and he chanted wild Persian and Arabic
love-songs, and kept up a fire of conversation all day and all night,
singing and talking alternately.

"Griggs," he said, as we approached the end of our journey, "did you
have occasion to tell Miss Westonhaugh where I had gone?"

"Yes. She asked me, and I answered that you had gone to save a man's
life. She looked very much pleased, I thought, but just then somebody
came up, and we did not talk any more about it. I got your message the
evening of the day you left."

"She looked pleased?"

"Very much. I remember the colour came into her cheeks."

"Was she so pale, then?" he asked anxiously.

"Why, yes. You remember how she looked the night before you left? She
was even paler the next day, but when I said you had gone to do a good
deed, the light came into her face for a moment."

"Do you think she was ill, Griggs?"

"She did not look well, but of course she was anxious about you, and a
good deal cut up about your going."

"No; but did you really think she was ill?" he insisted.

"Oh no, nothing but your going."

His spirits were gone again, and he said very little more that day. As
we were ascending the last hills, some eight or nine hours from Simla,
the moon rose majestically behind us. It must have been ten o'clock, for
she could not have been seen above the notch in the mountains to
eastward until she had been risen an hour at least.

"I wonder where they are now, those two," said Isaacs.

"Shere Ali and Ram Lal?"

"Yes. They are probably across the borders into Thibet, watching the
moon rise from the door of some Buddhist monastery. I am glad I am not
there."

"Isaacs," I said, "I would really like to know why you took so much
trouble about Shere Ali. It seems to me you might have procured his
liberation