r as before--coupled
with the information that "this place is like your European heaven;
there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage."

Gunga Dass had been educated at a Mission School, and, as he himself
admitted, had he only changed his religion "like a wise man," might have
avoided the living grave which was now his portion. But as long as I was
with him I fancy he was happy.

Here was a Sahib, a representative of the dominant race, helpless as
a child and completely at the mercy of his native neighbors. In a
deliberate lazy way he set himself to torture me as a schoolboy would
devote a rapturous half-hour to watching the agonies of an impaled
beetle, or as a ferret in a blind burrow might glue himself comfortably
to the neck of a rabbit. The burden of his conversation was that there
was no escape "of no kind whatever," and that I should stay here till I
died and was "thrown on to the sand." If it were possible to forejudge
the conversation of the Damned on the advent of a new soul in their
abode, I should say that they would speak as Gunga Dass did to me
throughout that long afternoon. I was powerless to protest or answer;
all my energies being devoted to a struggle against the inexplicable
terror that threatened to overwhelm me again and again. I can compare
the feeling to nothing except the struggles of a man against the
overpowering nausea of the Channel passage--only my agony was of the
spirit and infinitely more terrible.

As the day wore on, the inhabitants began to appear in full strength to
catch the rays of the afternoon sun, which were now sloping in at the
mouth of the crater. They assembled in little knots, and talked among
themselves without even throwing a glance in my direction. About four
o'clock, as far as I could judge Gunga Dass rose and dived into his lair
for a moment, emerging with a live crow in his hands. The wretched bird
was in a most draggled and deplorable condition, but seemed to be in no
way afraid of its master. Advancing cautiously to the river front, Gunga
Dass stepped from tussock to tussock until he had reached a smooth patch
of sand directly in the line of the boat's fire. The occupants of the
boat took no notice. Here he stopped, and, with a couple of dexterous
turns of the wrist, pegged the bird on its back with outstretched wings.
As was only natural, the crow began to shriek at once and beat the air
with its claws. In a few seconds the clamor had attracted the attention