rts of places, just as if you was looking for some old
woman's buried crock of crooked sixpences; and as soon as you've been
gone these Indian chaps have come and looked, and stroked all the leaves
and moss straight again. You're after something, Mas'r Harry, and
they're after something; but I can't quite see through any of you yet.
Wants a good, stout, double-wicked six held the other side, and then I
could read you both like a book."

"Nonsense, Tom--nonsense!" I cried; though I felt troubled, and a vague
sense of uneasiness seemed to come over me.

"P'r'aps it is nonsense, Mas'r Harry--perhaps it ain't. But this here
ain't Old England; so don't you get thinking as there's a policeman
round every corner to come and help you, because there ain't, no more
than there's a public-house round the corner to get half a pint when a
fellow's tongue's dried up to his roof. So now let's understand one
another, Mas'r Harry. You've got to keep close up to the house."

"Nonsense!" I exclaimed. "What good would that do? Look here, Tom, my
good fellow: I know you are faithful and true-hearted, but you have been
following me about till you have found a mare's nest and seen an enemy
in every Indian. You must learn to keep your place, Tom, and not to
interfere."

Tom did not answer--he only looked sulky. Then, spitting in his hands,
he rubbed them together, crawled out of the bush, stood up, let his gun
fall into the hollow of his arm, and then thrusting his hands into his
pockets, stood looking at me, as if prepared for the worst.

"Going any farther, Mas'r Harry?" he said as I rose.

"Yes," I said, "I'm going up this gorge."

Then with Tom closely following, I climbed on till we were in a vast
rift, whose sides were one mass of beautiful verdure spangled with
bright blossoms. High overhead, towering up and up, were the mountains,
whose snow-capped summits glistened and flashed in the sun, while the
ridges and ravines were either glittering and gorgeous or shadowy and of
a deep, rich purple, fading into the blackness of night.

I stopped gazing around at the platform above platform of rock rising
above me, and thought of what a magnificent site one of the flat
table-lands would make for a town, little thinking that once a rich city
had flourished there. Even Tom seemed attracted by the beauty of the
scene, for he stood gazing about till, seeing my intent, he came close
behind me again, and together, with the travelle