," he answered, with the mountaineer's habit of reckoning distance
by time, which extends, under the like circumstances, the whole world
over.

I went back to the tents, and consulted Hilda and Lady Meadowcroft. Our
spoilt child pouted, and was utterly averse to any detour of any sort.
"Let's get back straight to Ivor," she said, petulantly. "I've had enough
of camping out. It's all very well in its way for a week but when they
begin to talk about cutting your throat and all that, it ceases to be
a joke and becomes a wee bit uncomfortable. I want my feather bed. I
object to their villages."

"But consider, dear," Hilda said, gently. "This traveller is ill, all
alone in a strange land. How can Hubert desert him? It is a doctor's
duty to do what he can to alleviate pain and to cure the sick. What
would we have thought ourselves, when we were at the lamasery, if a body
of European travellers had known we were there, imprisoned and in danger
of our lives, and had passed by on the other side without attempting to
rescue us?"

Lady Meadowcroft knit her forehead. "That was us," she said, with an
impatient nod, after a pause--"and this is another person. You can't
turn aside for everybody who's ill in all Nepaul. And plague, too!--so
horrid! Besides, how do we know this isn't another plan of these hateful
people to lead us into danger?"

"Lady Meadowcroft is quite right," I said, hastily. "I never thought
about that. There may be no plague, no patient at all. I will go up with
this man alone, Hilda, and find out the truth. It will only take me five
hours at most. By noon I shall be back with you."

"What? And leave us here unprotected among the wild beasts and the
savages?" Lady Meadowcroft cried, horrified. "In the midst of the
forest! Dr. Cumberledge, how can you?"

"You are NOT unprotected," I answered, soothing her. "You have Hilda
with you. She is worth ten men. And besides, our Nepaulese are fairly
trustworthy."

Hilda bore me out in my resolve. She was too much of a nurse, and had
imbibed too much of the true medical sentiment, to let me desert a
man in peril of his life in a tropical jungle. So, in spite of Lady
Meadowcroft, I was soon winding my way up a steep mountain track,
overgrown with creeping Indian weeds, on my road to the still
problematical village graced by the residence of the retired gentleman.

After two hours' hard climbing we reached it at last. The retired
gentleman led the way to a house in