him to take me away with him.

I bitterly reproached myself for what I looked upon as my weakness in
giving way, though I know now that I did quite right, for of course I
could not foresee so sudden a change. I had expected it, and we had
discussed its probability, but I had hoped that there would be time for
my rescue first.

"Once inside the city, Brace will not have much chance of getting me
away," I said to myself despondently; and then, as I sat thinking over
my unhappy lot, and of the coming interview with the rajah, there was
only one way in which I felt that I could help myself, and that was to
seem worse instead of better when my captor came.

But I threw that idea aside directly; it was too contemptible.

"I must act like an English officer," I said. "It would be despicable
to sham, and he would see through it all at once."

Like many another one in such a position, I gave up thinking at last,
and prepared myself for the inevitable.

"After all," I mused, "he may not think me well enough, and then there
will be a respite. If he does say I am to go, well, I suppose it will
be to a prison."

I could not help feeling low-spirited, and the more so that on the other
hand there was the temptation offered to me of going straight to a
palace, and taking up at once my position, boy as I was, as the rajah's
most trusted leader of his troops.

The time went slowly on, and I sat expecting to hear the jingling of the
escort's accoutrements; but hour after hour passed, it would soon be
sundown, and then there would be another day's respite.

Salaman had made great preparations, and I was astonished at their
extent, for I had not thought it possible so elaborate a meal could be
prepared out there in the forest; but when I made some remark thereon,
he only smiled and said--

"I have only to give orders, my lord, and messengers bring everything I
want; but it is all in vain, the sun will sink directly, and his
highness has given up coming to-day."

Almost as he spoke, my heart beat, for in the distance there was the
sound of a horse galloping.

"A messenger," cried Salaman, excitedly, "to say his highness cannot
come."

I felt that he must be right, for, though I listened, I could hear no
more. It was evidently only one horse. He was not coming that day.

I uttered a sigh of relief, and strained my eyes to watch the opening
between the trees, through which directly after a handsomely dressed
horseman can