too great a coward at heart to tell myself the
naked truth. You, on the other hand, are vacillating and ill at your
ease. You shrink from the hards of life which I steer happily through.
But you have no delusions with yourself, and the odds are that when the
time comes you may choose the "high that proved too high" and achieve
the impossibly heroic.

A tired man with an odd gleam in his eye came out of the shadows to the
firelight and called George by name.

"My God, Lewis, I am glad to see you! I thought you were lost. Food?"
and he displayed the resources of his larder.

Lewis hunted for the water-bottle and quenched his thirst. Then he ate
ravenously of the cold wild-fowl and oatcake which George had provided.
He was silent and incurious till he had satisfied his wants; then he
looked up to meet George's questions.

"Where on earth have you been? Andover said you started out to come
here last night. I did as you told me, you know, and when you didn't
come I roused the Khautmi people. They swore a good deal but turned
out, and after an infernal long climb we got to Forza. We roused up
Andover after a lot of trouble, and he took us in and gave us supper.
He said you had gone off hours ago, and that the Bada-Mawidi business
had been more or less of a fraud. So I slept there and came back here
in the morning in case you should turn up. Been shooting all day, but
it was lonely work and I didn't get the right hang of the country.
These beggars there are jolly little use," and he jerked his head in the
direction of the native servants. "What _have_ you been after?"

"I? Oh, I've been in queer places. I fell into the hands of the Badas
a couple of hours after I left Forza. There was a storm up there and I
got lost in the mist. They took me up to a village and kept me there
all night. And then I heard news--my God, such news! They let me go
because they thought I could do no harm and I ran most of the way here.
Marker has scored this time, old man. You know how he has been going
about all North India for the last year or two getting things much his
own way. Well, to-night when the moon rises the great blow is to be
struck. It seems there is a pass to the north of this; I knew the place
but I didn't know of the road. There is an army coming down that place
in an hour or so. It is the devil's own business, but it has got to be
faced. We must warn Bardur, and trust to God that Bardur may warn the
south. You know the telegr