uld they talk across thousands of miles of land and
sea.

At length his mind cleared suddenly, and he awoke as from a nightmare to
find himself lying in the hall or room where he had always been, feeling
quite cool and without pain, but so weak that it was an effort to him to
lift his hand. He stared about him and was astonished to see the white
head of Jeekie rolling uneasily to and fro upon the cushions of another
bed near by.

"Jeekie," he said, "are you ill too, Jeekie?"

At the sound of that voice his retainer started up violently.

"What, Major, you awake?" he said. "Thanks be to all gods, white and
black, yes, and yellow too, for I thought your goose cooked. No, no,
Major, I not ill, only Asika say so. You go to bed, so she make me go
to bed. You get worse, she treat me cruel; you seem better, she stuff me
with food till I burst. All because you tell her that you and I die same
day. Oh, Lord! poor Jeekie think his end very near just now, for he know
quite well that she not let him breathe ten minutes after you peg out.
Jeekie never pray so hard for anyone before as he pray this week for
you, and by Jingo! I think he do the trick, he and that medicine stuff
which make him feel very bad in stomach," and he groaned under the
weight of his many miseries.

Weak as he was Alan began to laugh, and that laugh seemed to do him more
good than anything that he could remember, for after it he was sure that
he would recover.

Just then an agonized whisper reached him from Jeekie.

"Look out!" it said, "here come Asika. Go sleep and seem better, Major,
please, or I catch it hot."

So Alan almost shut his eyes and lay still. In another moment she was
standing over him and he noticed that her hair was dishevelled and her
eyes were red as though with weeping. She scanned him intently for a
little while, then passed round to where Jeekie lay and appeared to
pinch his ear so hard that he wriggled and uttered a stifled groan.

"How is your lord, dog?" she whispered.

"Better, O Asika, I think that last medicine do us good, though it make
me very sick inside. Just now he spoke to me and said that he hoped
that your heart was not sad because of him and that all this time in his
dreams he had seen and thought of nobody but you, O Asika."

"Did he?" asked that lady, becoming intensely interested. "Then tell me,
dog, why is he ever calling upon one Bar-bar-a? Surely that is a woman's
name?"

"Yes, O Asika, that is the name