ke my advice on it--Follow the priest!"

IT was two hours after sunrise on the second day that followed
Cunningham's desertion of his party when he and Mahommed Gunga first
caught sight of a blue, baked rock rising sheer out of a fringe of
green on the dazzling horizon. It was a freak of nature--a point pushed
through the level crust of bone-dry earth, and left to glitter there
alone.

"That is my cousin Alwa's place!" exclaimed Mahommed Gunga, and he
seemed to draw a world of consolation from the fact.

The sight loosed his tongue at last; he rode by Cunningham, and deigned
an explanation now, at least, of what had led to what might happen. He
wasted little breath on prophecy, but he was eloquent in building up
a basis from which Cunningham might draw his own deductions. They had
ridden through the cool of the night in easy stages, and should have
camped at dawn; but Mahommed Gunga had insisted that the tired animals
could carry them for three hours longer.

"A soldier's horse must rest at the other end sahib," he had laughed.
"Who knows that they have not sent from Abu to arrest both thee and me?"
And he had not vouchsafed another word until, over the desert glare, his
cousin's aerie had blazed out, beating back the molten sun-rays.

"It looks hotter than the horns of hell!" said Cunningham.

"The horns of hell, sahib, are what we leave behind us! They grow hot
now! Thy countrymen--the men who hated thee so easily--heated them and
sit now between them for their folly!"

"How d'you mean? 'Pon my soul and honor, Risaldar, you talk more riddles
in five minutes than I ever heard before in all my life!"

"There be many riddles I have not told yet--riddles of which I do not
know the answer. Read me this one. Why did the British Government annex
the state of Oudh? All the best native soldiers came from Oudh, or
nearly all. They were loyal once; but can a man be fairly asked to
side against his own? If Oudh should rise in rebellion, what would the
soldiers do?"

"Dunno, I'm sure," said Cunningham.

"Read me this one, then. By pacifying both Mohammedan and Hindoo and by
letting both keep their religion, by sometimes playing one against the
other and by being just, the British Government has become supreme
from the Himalayas to the ocean. Can you tell me why they now issue
cartridges for the new rifles that are soaked in the fat of cows and
pigs, thus insulting both Mohammedan and Hindoo?"

"I didn't know it was