y heart and soul of all Chitor. And, behind him, the
Gau-Mukh guggled and choked like a man in his death-throe. The
Englishman endured as long as he could--about two minutes. Then it came
upon him that he must go quickly out of this place of years and
blood--must get back to the afternoon sunshine, and Gerowlia, and the
dak-bungalow with the French bedstead. He desired no archaeological
information, he wished to take no notes, and, above all, he did not care
to look behind him, where stood the reminder that he was no better than
the beasts that perish. But he had to cross the smooth, worn rocks, and
he felt their sliminess through his bootsoles. It was as though he were
treading on the soft, oiled skin of a Hindu. As soon as the steps gave
refuge, he floundered up them, and so came out of the Gau-Mukh, bedewed
with that perspiration which follows alike on honest toil or--childish
fear.

"This," said he to himself, "is absurd!" and sat down on the fallen top
of a temple to review the situation. But the Gau-Mukh had disappeared.
He could see the dip in the ground and the beginning of the steps, but
nothing more.

Perhaps it was absurd. It undoubtedly appeared so, later. Yet there was
something uncanny about it all. It was not exactly a feeling of danger
or pain, but an apprehension of great evil.

In defence, it may be urged that there is moral, just as much as there
is mine, choke-damp. If you get into a place laden with the latter you
die, and if into the home of the former you ... behave unwisely, as
constitution and temperament prompt. If any man doubt this, let him sit
for two hours in a hot sun on an elephant, stay half an hour in the
Tower of Victory, and then go down into the Gau-Mukh, which, it must
never be forgotten, is merely a set of springs "three or four in number,
issuing from the cliff face at cow-mouth carvings, now mutilated. The
water, evidently percolating from the Hathi Kund above, falls first in
an old pillared hall and thence into the masonry reservoir below,
eventually, when abundant enough, supplying a little waterfall lower
down." That, Gentlemen and Ladies, on the honour of one who has been
frightened of the dark in broad daylight, is the Gau-Mukh, as though
photographed.

The Englishman regained Gerowlia and demanded to be taken away, but
Gerowlia's driver went forward instead and showed him a new Mahal just
built by the present Maharana. Carriage drives, however, do not consort
well with