must have eaten his food on that land-march fresh and fresh
every day, instead of keeping it by him till it was in a fit and proper
condition, as every self-respecting mugger and most wild beasts do when
they can. Indeed, one of the worst terms of contempt along the River-bed
is "eater of fresh meat." It is nearly as bad as calling a man a
cannibal.

"That food was eaten thirty seasons ago," said the Adjutant quietly. "If
we talk for thirty seasons more it will never come back. Tell us, now,
what happened when the good waters were reached after thy most wonderful
land journey. If we listened to the howling of every jackal the business
of the town would stop, as the saying is."

The Mugger must have been grateful for the interruption, because he went
on, with a rush:

"By the Right and Left of Gunga! when I came there never did I see such
waters!"

"Were they better, then, than the big flood of last season?" said the
Jackal.

"Better! That flood was no more than comes every five years--a handful
of drowned strangers, some chickens, and a dead bullock in muddy water
with cross-currents. But the season I think of, the river was low,
smooth, and even, and, as the Gavial had warned me, the dead English
came down, touching each other. I got my girth in that season--my
girth and my depth. From Agra, by Etawah and the broad waters by
Allahabad----"

"Oh, the eddy that set under the walls of the fort at Allahabad!" said
the Adjutant. "They came in there like widgeon to the reeds, and round
and round they swung--thus!"

He went off into his horrible dance again, while the Jackal looked on
enviously. He naturally could not remember the terrible year of the
Mutiny they were talking about. The Mugger continued:

"Yes, by Allahabad one lay still in the slack-water and let twenty go
by to pick one; and, above all, the English were not cumbered with
jewellery and nose-rings and anklets as my women are nowadays. To
delight in ornaments is to end with a rope for a necklace, as the saying
is. All the muggers of all the rivers grew fat then, but it was my Fate
to be fatter than them all. The news was that the English were being
hunted into the rivers, and by the Right and Left of Gunga! we believed
it was true. So far as I went south I believed it to be true; and I went
down-stream beyond Monghyr and the tombs that look over the river."

"I know that place," said the Adjutant. "Since those days Monghyr is a
lost city. Very few