on, and come off the hero of the whole campaign. Miss
Westonhaugh was speechless with horror at the whole thing, and seemed to
cling to her uncle, as if fearing something of the same kind might
happen to her at any moment. Isaacs, as usual the last on the line of
beating, came up and called out his congratulations.

"After saving a life so well, Mr. Ghyrkins, you will not grudge me the
poor honour of risking one, will you?"

"Not I, my boy!" answered the delighted old sportsman, "only if that
mangy old man-eater had got you down the other day, I should not have
been there to pot him!"

"Great shot, sir! I envy you," said Kildare.

"Splendid shot. A hundred yards at least," said John Westonhaugh
meditatively, but in a loud voice.

So we swung away toward the camp, though it was early. Ghyrkins
chuckled, and the man with the broken bones groaned. But between the
different members of the party he would be a rich man before he was
well. I amused myself with my favourite sport of potting peacocks with
bullets; it is very good practice. Isaacs had told me that morning when
we started that he would leave us the next day to meet Shere Ali near
Keitung. We reached camp about three o'clock, in the heat of the
afternoon. The injured beater was put in a servant's tent to be sent off
to Pegnugger in a litter in the cool of the night. There was a doctor
there who would take care of him under the collector's written orders.

The camp was in a shady place, quite unlike the spot where we had first
pitched our tents. There was a little grove of mango-trees, rather
stunted, as they are in the north, and away at one corner of the
plantation was a well with a small temple where a Brahmin, related to
all the best families in the neighbouring village, dwelt and collected
the gifts bestowed on him and his simple shrine by the superstitious,
devout, or worldly pilgrims who yearly and monthly visited him in search
of counsel, spiritual or social. The men had mowed the grass smooth
under the trees, and the shade was not so close as to make it damp. Some
ryots had been called in to dig a ditch and raised a rough _chapudra_ or
terrace, some fifteen feet in diameter, opposite the dining-tent, on
which elevation we could sit, even late at night, in reasonable security
from cobras and other evil beasts. It was a pleasant place in the
afternoon, and pleasanter still at night. As I turned into our tent
after we got back, I thought I would go and s