one passage Gulab-Sing was already at the next one, in spite of
the heavy burden he carried; and they never were in time to be of any
assistance to him. The colonel, whose main feature is the tendency to go
into the details of everything, could not conceive by what proceedings
the Takur had managed to pass my almost lifeless body so rapidly through
all these narrow holes.

"He could not have thrown her down the passage before going in himself,
for every single bone of her body would have been broken," mused the
colonel. "And it is still less possible to suppose that, descending
first himself, he dragged her down afterwards. It is simply
incomprehensible!"

These questions harassed him for a long time afterwards, until they
became something like the puzzle: Which was created first, the egg or
the bird?

As to the Takur, when closely questioned, he shrugged his shoulders,
and answered that he really did not remember. He said that he simply
did whatever he could to get me out into the open air; that all our
traveling companions were there to watch his proceedings; he was under
their eyes all the time, and that in circumstances when every second is
precious people do not think, but act.

But all these questions arose only in the course of the day. As to the
time directly after I was laid down on the verandah, there were other
things to puzzle all our party; no one could understand how the Takur
happened to be on the spot exactly when his help was most needed, nor
where he came from--and everyone was anxious to know. On the verandah
they found me lying on a carpet, with the Takur busy restoring me to my
senses, and Miss X---- with her eyes wide open at the Takur, whom she
decidedly believed to be a materialized ghost.

However, the explanations our friend gave us seemed perfectly
satisfactory, and at first did not strike us as unnatural. He was in
Hardwar when Swami Dayanand sent us the letter which postponed our going
to him. On arriving at Kandua by the Indore railway, he had visited
Holkar; and, learning that we were so near, he decided to join us sooner
than he had expected. He had come to Bagh yesterday evening, but knowing
that we were to start for the caves early in the morning he went there
before us, and simply was waiting for us in the caves.

"There is the whole mystery for you," said he.

"The whole mystery?" exclaimed the colonel. "Did you know, then,
beforehand that we would discover the cells, or what?