ready for a visitor."

I smiled, and motioned for his men to do likewise, and then, because
he was a man of sweet composure and had not asked any questions as
to the extra glass and chair, told him that his bird had flown.

"Bad 'cess to him, sir, 'e's led us a pretty chase for these last
four weeks. If 'e was only a deserter I wouldn't mind, but 'e's a
kidnapper. Leastways, Tommy Loud's young'n turned up missin' the day
he skipped, an' we ain't seen nothin' of 'er since."

"Is this she?" I asked, leading him to the cot.

Hardly looking at the child, he raised her in his arms and kissed her.

"God be praised, sir," he said with a show of feeling. "We 'ave got
her back. I think her mother would 'ave died if we 'ad come back again
without her,--but, O my little darlin', you look cruel bad. Drugged,
sir, that's what she is. Drugged to keep 'er quiet and save food. The
blag'ard!"

"But what did he take her for?" I asked.

"Bless you, sir," replied the corporal, "she was his stock in trade. I
reckon she's drawn many dibs out of other people's pockets that would
'ave been nestlin' there to-day if it 'adn't 'a' bin for 'er."

Then a broad grin broke over his ruddy features, and he looked at
me quizzically.

"But 'e was a great play hactor, sir."

"And a poet," I added enthusiastically.

"'E could beat Kipling romancin', sir." He checked himself, as though
ashamed of awarding such meed of praise to his ex-colleague.

"But we must be goin'; orders strict. With your permission, sir,
I will leave her with a guard of one man for to-night, and send the
ambulance for her in the morning."

He drew up his little file, saluted, and marched out into the rain
and wind, with all the cheerfulness of a duck.

I could hear them singing as they crossed the compound and struck
into the jungle road:--

"Oh, it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, go away';
But it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins,' when the band begins to play,
The band begins to--"

A peal of thunder that shook the bungalow from its attap roof to its
nebong pillars drowned the melody and drove me inside.

A PIG HUNT

In the Malayan Jungle

The thermometer stood at 155 degrees in the sun. The dry lallang grass
crackled and glowed and returned long irregular waves of heat to the
quivering metallic dome above.

The sensitive mimosa, at our feet, had long since surrendered to the
fierce wooing of the sun-god, submissively folding