dly. "The boat not back?"

He listened for a few moments to Mrs Morley's once more excited words;
but he half-interrupted her before she had done, by exclaiming:

"Here they come! I have told the Major, and he is turning out the men.
For Heaven's sake, Mrs Morley, try and be calm."

"I am trying, Sir Charles. But my husband absent! How can I look him
in the face when he comes back?"

"Oh, hush, hush!" whispered the Resident, pressing her hand so hard that
she could hardly bear it.

"You are taking the very blackest view of the matter. It may be a
trifle--one of the poles broken, or they may have ventured too far."

"Don't talk, pray," said Mrs Morley. "Never mind me. Do something!
Act!"

"I am acting, and for the best," whispered Sir Charles. "I would give
my life to save Minnie if she is in danger, but I feel it my duty to try
to comfort you."

The next minute he was busy with the officers and the men, hurrying
along the river-bank and sending off boats up the stream, in one of
which--his own, manned by a dozen men--he was standing with Captain Down
and the Major, watching the sides of the river, sometimes plunged in
black darkness, at others glistening in the light of the moon, which had
now risen far above the trees. But they had not been gone above
half-an-hour before news came, to run through the ranks of the searchers
left behind, some of whom, on the possibility that those sought might
have had an accident with the boat and been compelled to land and fight
their way through the jungle, had penetrated some distance along the
path nearest to the river-side, and been recalled by one of the
officers' whistles.

On hurrying back they had encountered the Sergeant going the rounds, who
had to announce that the sentry stationed at the hut above the chief
landing-place was missing, and no answer could be obtained to the calls
that should have reached his ears had he been anywhere near.

It was a night of excitement, misery, and despair, and the short dawn,
when it broke, brought not hope but horror and dismay, for all at once,
when the morning mist was lying heavily upon the lower reach of the
river, the sound of oars was heard approaching the campong, and as it
neared the lower landing-place, to which several of the party hurried,
it seemed quite a long space of time before the heads of the rowers
began to come gradually out of the grey fog; and soon after it was made
out to be Rajah Hamet's naga, or