ng of the
kind?"

"I--a holy man?"

"I heard them speak of you last night. You see they have heard of your
deliverance of the Grass Jungle people."

Skag was learning how wonderfully news travels in India.

"Of course, it was all easy to believe, after what I saw--"

"What did you see?" he asked.

"That the two priests of Hanuman permitted you to follow them here--"

Then Carlin verified what Cadman had said, that the priests make no
mistakes in these things. . . . Presently Skag was listening to
accounts of Carlin's life. He was insatiable to hear all. In some
moments of the telling, it was like a phantom part of himself that he
was questing for, through her words. Her story ran from the Vindhas to
the Western Ghat mountains, touching plain and height and shore (but
not yet High Himalaya), touching tree jungle, civil station, railway
station and cantonments; stories including a succession of marvellous
names of cities and men; intimations that many great servants of India
and England were of her name; that she had seven living brothers, all
older; all at work over India. Finally Skag heard that Carlin had
spent eight years in England studying medicine and surgery, and again
that the natives called her the _Gul Moti_, which means the Rose Pearl;
or _Hakima_, which means physician. But her own name was Carlin!

When they came back to the edge of the jungle again, it was the hour of
afterglow. Its colours entered into him and were always afterward
identified with her. Carlin left him, laughingly, abruptly; and Skag
was so full of the wonder of all the world, that he had not thought to
ask if he should ever see her again.

As night came on, Skag thought more and more of the parting; and that
there had been no words about Carlin's coming again. He felt himself
living breathlessly towards the thought of seeing her; and it was not
long before this fervour itself awoke within him a counter resistance.
Manifestly this pain and yearning and tension--was not the way to the
full secret. As carefully stated before, Skag approved emphatically of
the Now. The present moving point was the best he had at any given
time. He thought a man should forget himself in the Now--like the
animals.

Yet the hours tortured. That night had little sleep for him, and the
marvels of Carlin--face and voice, laugh, heart, hand--grew upon him
contrary to all precedent. This was a battle against all the wild
animals rolled in