and thread of yours."

"I never saw you look better in my life. There are no freckles, and the
brown will soon wear off, if you want it to. Though really it's
becoming--makes the eyes larger. So make your mind easy on that score.
As for tatters"--looking at his own attire--"I'm afraid we are rather a
ragged pair. By the way, I wonder what your people in England would say
if they could see you now."

"I know what they'd say to you for the care you've taken of me," she
answered seriously, "what they will say, I hope, one of these days."

He turned away suddenly, and bending down, began busying himself over
the rolling up of their scanty kit.

"Oh, as to that," he rejoined, speaking in a tone of studied
carelessness, "where should I have been all this time without you? Nice
cheerful work it would have been romping about the mountains alone,
wouldn't it?"

"You would have been in safety long ago without myself as a drag upon
you."

"Possibly; possibly not. But, speaking selfishly, I prefer things as
they are. But it's rough on you, that's what I'm thinking about. By
the way, old Shiminya isn't quite such a rip as I thought. I was more
than half afraid he'd have given us away when they cut him loose. But
he doesn't seem to have done so, or we'd have heard about it before
now."

This apparently careless change of subject did not impose upon Nidia.
She saw through and appreciated it--and a thrill of pride and admiration
went through her. Whimsically enough, her own words, spoken to her
friend on the day of that first meeting, came into her mind. "I think
we'll get to know him, he looks nice." And now--he had impressed her as
no man had ever before done. Full of resource, strong, tactful, and
eminently companionable as he had shown himself, she was intensely proud
of the chivalrous adoration with which she knew he regarded her, and all
manifestation of which he was ever striving to repress. What would she
do when they returned to safety, and their ways would lie apart? For
somehow in Nidia's mind the certainty that they would return to safety
had firmly taken root.

"Perhaps they haven't cut him loose yet," she suggested.

Her companion gave a whistle, and looked scared. Only for a moment,
though.

"Bad for him in that case. It would have been better for him and safer
for us--to have given him a tap on the head. I couldn't prove anything
against him, though I've had my eye on him for some time--