ll have them
decently interred."

I was about to make some reply when the mate burst into a loud guffaw,
slapping his thigh and choking with merriment.

"If you want to bury them," he said, "you had best look sharp, or they
may clear out of the country. You remember what I said last night? Just
look at the top of that 'ere hillock, and tell me whether I was in the
right or not?"

There was a high sand dune some little distance along the coast, and
upon the summit of this the figure was standing which had attracted the
mate's attention. The captain threw up his hands in astonishment as his
eyes rested upon it.

"By the eternal," he shouted, "it's Ram Singh himself! Let us overhaul
him!"

Taking to his heels in his excitement he raced along the beach, followed
by the mate and myself, as well as by one or two of the fishermen who
had observed the presence of the stranger.

The latter, perceiving our approach, came down from his post of
observation and walked quietly in our direction, with his head sunk upon
his breast, like one who is absorbed in thought.

I could not help contrasting our hurried and tumultuous advance with the
gravity and dignity of this lonely Oriental, nor was the matter mended
when he raised a pair of steady, thoughtful dark eyes and inclined his
head in a graceful, sweeping salutation. It seemed to me that we were
like a pack of schoolboys in the presence of a master.

The stranger's broad, unruffled brow, his clear, searching gaze,
firm-set yet sensitive mouth, and clean-cut, resolute expression, all
combined to form the most imposing and noble presence which I had ever
known. I could not have imagined that such imperturbable calm and at
the same time such a consciousness of latent strength could have been
expressed by any human face.

He was dressed in a brown velveteen coat, loose, dark trousers, with a
shirt that was cut low in the collar, so as to show the muscular,
brown neck, and he still wore the red fez which I had noticed the night
before.

I observed with a feeling of surprise, as we approached him, that none
of these garments showed the slightest indication of the rough treatment
and wetting which they must have received during their wearer's
submersion and struggle to the shore.

"So you are none the worse for your ducking," he said in a pleasant,
musical voice, looking from the captain to the mate. "I hope that your
poor sailors have found pleasant quarters."

"We are al