very little support
since then."

"Now, what can I do?" she asked, with a little laugh. "Please order me
to do something. I am your slave, you know, and I want to be helping
you."

"Well, then, I command you to aid me to gather some sticks for a fire.
We have nothing to cook, but it will be cheerful, and the air is
cool."

They picked up sticks, while Surajah and Ibrahim loosened the girths
of the horses, took off their bridles, and poured out another feed
from the bag of grain they had brought with them. In a few minutes a
fire was blazing, and the wallet of provisions brought out.

"I wish I had a cup of coffee to offer you, Annie," Dick said, as he
poured her out some wine and water, "but we must wait, for that, until
we get down to Tripataly."

"I have forgotten all about coffee, Dick, and what it tastes like. The
white girls used to talk about it, and say how they longed for a cup.
It seems, to me, funny to drink anything hot. I have never tasted
anything but water, that I can remember, until you gave me that wine
yesterday."

"It is very nice, and very refreshing. There is another drink that is
coming into fashion. It is called tea. I have tasted it a few times,
but I don't like it as well as coffee, and it is much more expensive."

"The sultan says that all the English get drunk, and there used to be
pictures of them on the walls. They used to make me so angry."

"I don't say that no English get drunk, Annie, because there is no
doubt that some do. But it is very far from being true of the great
proportion of them. Tippoo only says it to excite the people against
us, because, now that he has made them all Mohammedans, they cannot
drink wine--at any rate, openly. When I bought these two bottles, the
trader made a great mystery over it, and if I had not given him a sign
he understood, and which made him believe that I was a Hindoo and not
a Mussulman, he would not have admitted that he kept it at all. He did
say so, at first, for I have no doubt he thought that, as I was an
officer of the Palace, it was a snare, and that if he had admitted he
had wine I should have reported him, and it would have served as an
excuse for his being fined, and perhaps having all his goods
confiscated. When I made the sign that an old Hindoo had taught me,
his manner changed directly, and he took me to the back of his little
shop, and produced the wine. I told him I wanted it for medicine, and
that was quite true, for I tho