arrying loads, cutting grass for the horses, foraging for the
elephants, and cooking. We must have hewers of wood and drawers of
water, my dear boy, and keep a strict watch over these modern children
of Gibeon. We cannot trust them, but we must have their services."

"Yes, I see," I replied.

"And there is this advantage: we are journeying through a strange
country, which they know. We must eat, so must they. We should not be
able to forage; they are, and in finding food for themselves they are
compelled to find it for us. No, we cannot trust them. Look here. For
aught we know, the men who are bowing down before us, and calling us
sahibs, had a hand in this."

We had reached a large bungalow, which, we afterwards learned, had been
the commissioner's house, and as I went with my companion from room to
room, which at one time must have been furnished in exquisite taste,
there were traces of the wanton destruction of a savage mob. Furniture
had been smashed, the floor was littered with the remains of mirrors and
ornaments; curtains and carpets were torn to shreds, and everything that
could be battered and destroyed was in pieces.

It was so in the next room, and we were about to pass on to others, with
the picture rising to my mind of what this place must have been before
the rising, when Brace suddenly stepped before me, swung me round
hastily, and gave me a push.

"Here, let's get out of the miserable place, Gil," he said hastily.

"You were too late," I said. "I saw it the same moment. It's of no
use; I may as well get accustomed to such things, even if I am a mere
boy."

For, in one corner of the once handsome room, there were spots and
splashes on the white wall, and terrible stains on the floor. The
plaster of the sides, too, was scarred and dotted with bullet holes, and
we could grasp the terrible fact that some one, probably more than one,
had made a desperate defence in that corner, for there was a sword,
broken in two pieces, lying behind a shattered piano, in whose woodwork
were dozens of cuts, such as might have been given by savage men trying
to get at those behind who had made it their breastwork; and as I saw
all this, I could not refrain from going close--Brace making no
opposition now--to see other terrible traces of the desperate fight of
which this place must have been the scene.

One of the first things I saw behind the broken piano was a white
handkerchief, horribly stained. It had