w a jungle trail unarmed at night. If he had
stopped to think at all he simply would have been unable to go on. He
was only following his instincts, voices that such forces as maturity
and grown-up intelligence and self-consciousness obscure in older
men--and the terror of the jungle could not touch him. He went
straight to do what service he could for the white sahib that was one
of his lesser gods.

Time after time he halted, but always he pushed on a few more feet.
Now he was over halfway to the ford, clear to the forks in the trail.
And then he turned about with a little gasp of fear.

The light from the village had gone out. The thick foliage of the
jungle had come between.

He was really frightened now. It wasn't that he was afraid he couldn't
get back. The trail was broad and hard and quite gray in the
moonlight. But those far-off beams of light had been a solace to his
spirit, a reminder that he had not yet broken all ties with the
village. He halted, intending to turn back.

Then a thrill began at his scalp and went clear to his bare toes.
Faint through the jungle silences he heard Warwick Sahib calling to
his faithless beaters. The voice had an unmistakable quality of
distress.

Certain of the villagers--a very few of them--said afterward that
Little Shikara continued on because he was afraid to go back. They
said that he looked upon the Heaven-born sahib as a source of all
power, in whose protection no harm could befall him, and he sped
toward him because the distance was shorter than back to the haven of
fire at the village. But those who could look deeper into Little
Shikara's soul knew different. In some degree at least he hastened on
down that jungle trail of peril because he knew that his idol was in
distress, and by laws that went deep he knew he must go to his aid.

V

The first few minutes after Warwick had heard a living step in the
thickets he spent in trying to reload his rifle. He carried other
cartridges in the right-hand trousers pocket, but after a few minutes
of futile effort it became perfectly evident that he was not able to
reach them. His right arm was useless, and the fingers of his left,
lacerated by the mugger's bite, refused to take hold.

He had, however, three of the five shells the rifle held still in his
gun. The single question that remained was whether or not they would
be of use to him.

The rifle lay half under him, its stock protruding from beneath his
body. Wit