the scene of the Indian traveller, Mr.
Murthwaite. Skirting the half-circle in which the gentlefolks stood or
sat, he came quietly behind the jugglers and spoke to them on a sudden
in the language of their own country.

If he had pricked them with a bayonet, I doubt if the Indians could have
started and turned on him with a more tigerish quickness than they did,
on hearing the first words that passed his lips. The next moment they
were bowing and salaaming to him in their most polite and snaky way.
After a few words in the unknown tongue had passed on either side, Mr.
Murthwaite withdrew as quietly as he had approached. The chief Indian,
who acted as interpreter, thereupon wheeled about again towards the
gentlefolks. I noticed that the fellow's coffee-coloured face had turned
grey since Mr. Murthwaite had spoken to him. He bowed to my lady, and
informed her that the exhibition was over. The Bouncers, indescribably
disappointed, burst out with a loud "O!" directed against Mr. Murthwaite
for stopping the performance. The chief Indian laid his hand humbly
on his breast, and said a second time that the juggling was over.
The little boy went round with the hat. The ladies withdrew to the
drawing-room; and the gentlemen (excepting Mr. Franklin and Mr.
Murthwaite) returned to their wine. I and the footman followed the
Indians, and saw them safe off the premises.

Going back by way of the shrubbery, I smelt tobacco, and found Mr.
Franklin and Mr. Murthwaite (the latter smoking a cheroot) walking
slowly up and down among the trees. Mr. Franklin beckoned to me to join
them.

"This," says Mr. Franklin, presenting me to the great traveller, "is
Gabriel Betteredge, the old servant and friend of our family of whom I
spoke to you just now. Tell him, if you please, what you have just told
me."

Mr. Murthwaite took his cheroot out of his mouth, and leaned, in his
weary way, against the trunk of a tree.

"Mr. Betteredge," he began, "those three Indians are no more jugglers
than you and I are."

Here was a new surprise! I naturally asked the traveller if he had ever
met with the Indians before.

"Never," says Mr. Murthwaite; "but I know what Indian juggling really
is. All you have seen to-night is a very bad and clumsy imitation of
it. Unless, after long experience, I am utterly mistaken, those men are
high-caste Brahmins. I charged them with being disguised, and you saw
how it told on them, clever as the Hindoo people are in con