than he serves up. I must really get him to teach our mess
cook how to make it."

"Do you know what it is, Harry?"

"I have not the least idea; it might be anything. I think that it
tasted, to me, more like stewed eels than anything else."

"You are not very far out. It is made of the creatures you turned
up your nose at--snakes."

"Nonsense, Stanley!"

"It is, I can assure you. I would not tell you before, because it
might have set you against it. That soup you had in the cave was
made from snake flesh. The recesses in parts of the caves swarmed
with them, and the men laid in quite a store of them, before we
were besieged. Unfortunately they would not keep well, even in
these cool chambers, so we had to fall back on rice. You liked it
so much that, though there was no occasion to have gone on with
snake soup, after we got to the village, I continued to give it to
you; for it is very nourishing."

"Well, I am glad you did not tell me, at the time; but I must own
that it was excellent, and I think that, in future, I shall have no
objection to snake in that form."

"They are just as good, in other ways," Stanley replied. "The
Burmans are no fools, and I consider that snake and lizards are
very much better eating than their mutton; which is tasteless
stuff, at the best."

"We shall have to have a big settlement, when we get back, Stanley.
Of course, all those men you paid, and the guards you bribed, are
entirely my account; to say nothing of my share of the general
expenditure."

"The general expenses are practically nothing, Harry. I invited you
to come with me and, of course, you were my guest. As to the other
matter, that also is my business. I would not say so, if I had not
plenty of funds, but what with my pay as interpreter, and the year
of back pay that I got when the Gazette came out, I have plenty out
of my income to pay for it, without breaking in upon the amount I
told you I had got for those rubies."

"I should pay you, Stanley, if you were rolling in money. Not that
I should mind taking money from you, if I wanted it, but my
expenses since I landed here have not been anything approaching my
pay and allowances; and I have besides, as I told you, an income of
500 pounds a year of my own. You have risked your life for me, and
I am not going to let you pay the piper, as well."

"All right, if it pleases you, Harry. I am delighted at having been
able to save you and, just at present, money does not