pering. It only lasted a moment, and the figure
shot away again. I was sure I heard something like a kiss, in the gloom,
and there was a most undeniable smell of roses in the air. I held my
peace, though I was astonished. I could not have believed her capable of
it. Lying in wait in the dusk of the morning to give her lover a kiss
and a rose and a parting word. She must have taken me for his servant in
the dark.

"Griggs," said Isaacs as we parted some six or seven miles farther
on,--"an odd thing happened this morning. I have left something more in
your keeping than money."

"I know. Trust me. Good-bye," and he cantered off.

I confess I was very dejected and low-spirited when I came back into
camp. My acquaintance with Isaacs, so suddenly grown into intimacy, had
become a part of my life. I felt a sort of devotion to him that I had
never felt for any man in my life before. I would rather have gone with
him to Keitung, for a presentiment told me there was trouble in the
wind. He had not talked to me about the Baithopoor intrigue, for
everything was as much settled beforehand as it was possible to settle
anything. There was nothing to be said, for all that was to come was
action; but I knew Isaacs distrusted the maharajah, and that without Ram
Lal's assistance--of whatever nature that might prove to be--he would
not have ventured to go alone to such a tryst.

When I returned the camp was all alive, for it was nearly seven o'clock.
Kildare and the collector, my servant said, had gone off on _tats_ to
shoot some small game. Mr. Ghyrkins was occupied with the shikarries in
the stretching and dressing of the skin he had won the previous day.
Neither Miss Westonhaugh nor her brother had been seen. So I dressed and
rested myself and had some tea, and sat wondering what the camp would be
like without Isaacs, who, to me and to one other person, was
emphatically, as Ghyrkins had said the night before, the life of the
party. The weather was not so warm as on the previous day, and I was
debating whether I should not try and induce the younger men to go and
stick a pig--the shikarry said there were plenty in some place he knew
of--or whether I should settle myself in the dining-tent for a long day
with my books, when the arrival of a mounted messenger with some letters
from the distant post-office decided me in favour of the more peaceful
disposition of my time. So I glanced at the papers, and assured myself
that the English we