eat salt together. You are my guest, my honoured guest. This tent
is yours; the servants are yours; order them, and they will obey you.
As soon as you are well enough, there is a palanquin waiting with
willing men to bear you. When you are better still, there is your
elephant and a horse."

"My horse, my Arab?" I cried. "Is he safe?"

He smiled.

"Yes, quite safe, with two syces to care for him; the horse of their
rajah's friend. What can I get you? Ask for anything. I am _very_
rich, and it shall be yours."

"You can only give me one thing," I cried. "No; two things."

"The first, then?" he said, smiling.

"News of my troop, of Captain Brace, and our men; of the officers of the
foot regiment. Tell me," I cried excitedly, "how did the fight end?"

"How could it end?" he replied, with a smile full of pride. "What could
that poor handful of men do against my thousands?"

"Defeated?" I cried excitedly.

"Yes; they were defeated; they fled."

My countenance fell, and there must have been a look of despair in my
eyes, which he read, for he said more quietly--

"Captain Brace is a brave man, and he did everything he could; but he
had to flee--and you were left in my hands a prisoner," he added, with a
smile.

"He had to flee," I said to myself; and that means that he had escaped
uninjured from a desperate encounter. There was something consoling in
that; and I wanted to ask a score of questions about Haynes and the
infantry officers, but I could not. For one thing, I felt that it would
be like writing a long account of a list of disasters; for another, I
was not sure that I could trust an enemy's account of the engagement.
So I remained silent, and the rajah asked me a few questions about my
symptoms, and whether there was anything he could get for me.

I shook my head, for, though gratified by the warm liking and esteem he
had displayed, my spirits had sunk very low indeed, and I wanted to be
alone to think.

Seeing that I was weak and troubled, the rajah soon after rose, and
moved to the doorway of the tent, where he summoned one of the
attendants, and uttered a few words, the result being that a few minutes
after the tall, grave, eastern physician appeared at the doorway, and
salaamed in the most lowly way before his prince.

"Go to him," said the rajah in their own tongue, and the doctor came
across to me and began examining my injuries, while the rajah stood
looking on, watching everythi