ecalled an incident
that had entirely escaped his day-thoughts for a long time. It had to
do with that hard-testing period, just after his meeting with Carlin,
when he had journeyed to Poona to confer with the eldest brother,
Roderick Deal, and had been forced to wait more than a month. In that
interval he had learned about hyenas at first hand, through the plight
of Beatrice Hichens and the children; also his servant Bhanah had come
to him, and the Great Dane, Nels; still it had been a vague stretch of
days, in retrospect.

It was during the return-trip to Hurda that the thing happened which
held him now as he lay broad awake. Toward twilight, as the train
halted at one of the civil stations, a white-covered cot was lifted
aboard. There was a kind of silence about that station. The mountains
were near on the left hand which was to the West. The white glare of
Indian day had softened into delicate rose. A haze of orange and
bronze lay upon the lower slopes of the mountains, magically enriching
the greens; and the blue against which the mountains were contoured,
was pure and immense and still. It was difficult to remember the fret
and pain and discolouration of a world bathed in so vast a peace. . . .

At first he thought that the body on the cot was in its shroud. The
hush about it and from the mountains touched him with a feeling that he
had not quite known before, the depth of it having to do with Carlin.
Then he saw, back of the natives who had lifted the cot, yet not too
near, the figure of an Englishman of the Military--standing quietly by,
as if casually ordering a platoon of soldiers in the duty of loading
the train. Now Skag looked at the man's face. It had nothing to do
with the lax grace of the officer's figure. This was the face of a man
who could endure anything without a cry--a narrow face, tanned and a
bit hard possibly from years of self-repression--a silent man,
doubtless loved for the _feeling_ around him, rather than because of
what he was accustomed to say or do--a face stricken now to the verge
of chaos--unchanging anguish of fear and loneliness and sorrow
imprinted from within. A strange white glow, that had nothing to do
with the tan, shone forth from the skin--etheric disruption, subtler
than the breakdown of mere cells. This man would put a bullet in his
brain if pressed too far, but he would not cry out. Just now he was
close to his limit.

Skag knew something of what passed in