arlin was saying. "You may be
gone many days. You may not find him at once, and you will have to
wait at Poona, but I shall know when you come. The train coming _up_
is before noon. Listen! You will not find me at the bungalow. No,
that would not be the way for us. . . . This will be perfect. I will
be waiting for you--our place--back in the monkey glen."

"It is the perfect thought, but you must not go back there alone," he
said. "I had not meant to tell you now, but it was that--made me
steady--a tiger back there. He gave me nerve for your coming--a good
turn it was, the most needful turn! . . . Yes, a tiger lying down on
the river margin, as we talked--do not go in deeper, when I am
away. . . . And on the day I come, meet _me here_ at the edge of the
jungle and we will go in there to our place--together."

CHAPTER VI

_Jungle Laughter_

It was while Skag was waiting near Poona, for Carlin's eldest brother
Roderick Deal, that he became toiled in the snare of his own interest
in jungle laughter. It is a strange tale; lying over against the mud
wall of the English caste system in India. It is to be understood that
a civil officer of high rank in that country is a man whose word is
law. His least suggestion is imperative. The usages of his household
may not be questioned by a thought, if one is wise.

Police Commissioner Hichens was such a man. He was stationed in Bombay
and there is nothing better in appointment in all India. His
responsibilities were heavy like those of an empire. Personally he was
austere--entirely unapproachable. Of his home life no one knew
anything whatever, outside the very few of equal rank. It was
understood that the mother of his two small children had died more than
a year ago. Some indiscreet person had mooted that she was not sent
Home in time. Still, European women do not live long in that climate
anyway; and it is common knowledge that to maintain a family requires
several successive mothers.

The present Mrs. Hichens was but recently a bride; a mere girl and
lovely; but within a few weeks of her landing, Bombay fever had begun
to destroy the more tangible qualities of her beauty--which could not
be permitted.

It does not take long for the most exalted official to discover that
Bombay fever resembles the Supreme Being in that it is no respecter of
persons. Yet it was not even so nearly convenient to send this Mrs.
Hichens Home, as it had been to send