gether, for I could not
keep my balance, but when I got up I found him still lying quiet
enough. I made for the boat, and in an hour we were well out at sea.
Tonga had brought all his earthly possessions with him, his arms and
his gods. Among other things, he had a long bamboo spear, and some
Andaman cocoa-nut matting, with which I made a sort of sail. For ten
days we were beating about, trusting to luck, and on the eleventh we
were picked up by a trader which was going from Singapore to Jiddah
with a cargo of Malay pilgrims. They were a rum crowd, and Tonga and I
soon managed to settle down among them. They had one very good
quality: they let you alone and asked no questions.

"Well, if I were to tell you all the adventures that my little chum and
I went through, you would not thank me, for I would have you here until
the sun was shining. Here and there we drifted about the world,
something always turning up to keep us from London. All the time,
however, I never lost sight of my purpose. I would dream of Sholto at
night. A hundred times I have killed him in my sleep. At last,
however, some three or four years ago, we found ourselves in England.
I had no great difficulty in finding where Sholto lived, and I set to
work to discover whether he had realized the treasure, or if he still
had it. I made friends with someone who could help me,--I name no
names, for I don't want to get any one else in a hole,--and I soon
found that he still had the jewels. Then I tried to get at him in many
ways; but he was pretty sly, and had always two prize-fighters, besides
his sons and his khitmutgar, on guard over him.

"One day, however, I got word that he was dying. I hurried at once to
the garden, mad that he should slip out of my clutches like that, and,
looking through the window, I saw him lying in his bed, with his sons
on each side of him. I'd have come through and taken my chance with
the three of them, only even as I looked at him his jaw dropped, and I
knew that he was gone. I got into his room that same night, though,
and I searched his papers to see if there was any record of where he
had hidden our jewels. There was not a line, however: so I came away,
bitter and savage as a man could be. Before I left I bethought me that
if I ever met my Sikh friends again it would be a satisfaction to know
that I had left some mark of our hatred: so I scrawled down the sign
of the four of us, as it had been on the chart