ies.

I heard the rajah give some order, and directly after the grave old
doctor appeared, and gave me a cup of some cool drink, but it revived me
very little, and the next thing I remember is being carried to a couch,
and uttering a sigh of relief as my helmet and uniform were removed.
Then I dimly saw the face of the rajah looking down at me, and he said
something, but I could not answer, for all was growing misty and
strange, and I dropped at once into a heavy sleep.

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR.

It was only exhaustion, and I woke the next morning very little the
worse, and half expecting to find myself back in my tent and the journey
part of a fevered dream. But the first things my eyes lighted upon were
rich cushions and curtains, flowers, a shaded window looking out on an
inner court, full of verdant trees, and, standing silent and watchful by
one of the curtains, there was Salaman waiting to show me my bath, and
summon two more to assist.

People nowadays boast about their baths, some having endless praise to
give to those they call Turkish, but to thoroughly know what a good bath
is, they must have been on the hot plains of India, and known the luxury
of having porous chatties of cool, delicious water dashed over them, and
sending, as it were, life rushing through their enervated limbs.

I felt a different being in a few minutes after Salaman and the others
had finished their duties with all the assiduity of Hindu servants; and
then as I sat in the handsome apartment arranged in its simple, rich,
Eastern luxury, a feeling of wretchedness and misery came over me. I
looked round at the rich carpets, soft cushions, and costly curtains;
and then at my magnificent uniform, and began thinking of the old, old
fable I had read as a child, of the jackdaw in borrowed plumes, and felt
that I thoroughly deserved to share the vain daw's fate.

I know now that I was rather hard upon myself, and that circumstances
had forced me into this position, but I am not sorry that I felt so
strongly then.

What was to be done? I did not want to be ungrateful to a man who
evidently liked me for myself as well as for the use I might prove to
be, but help him I would not, I was determined, and I said I would
sooner die, though, even as I made that declaration mentally, I wondered
whether I was composed of the kind of stuff that would prove so staunch
when put to the test. At any rate, I was firm enough then, and began to
think out