a
hillsman; he endured like an Arab water-carrier. There was not an ounce
of useless flesh on his body, and every limb, bone, and sinew had
been stretched and hardened by riding with the Dakoon's horsemen, by
travelling through the jungle for the tiger and the panther, by throwing
the kris with Boonda Broke, fencing with McDermot, and by sabre practice
with red-headed Sergeant Doolan in the barracks by the Residency Square.
After twenty miles' ride he was dry as a bone, after thirty his skin
was moist but not damp, and there was not a drop of sweat on the
skin-leather of his fatigue cap. When he got to Koongat Bridge he was
like a racer after practice, ready for a fight from start to finish. Yet
he was not foolhardy. He knew the danger that beset him, for he could
not tell, in the crisis come to Mandakan, what designs might be abroad.
He now saw through Boonda Broke's friendship for him, and he only found
peace for his mind upon the point by remembering that he had told no
secrets, had given no information of any use to the foes of the Dakoon
or the haters of the English.

On this hot, long, silent ride he looked back carefully, but he could
not see where he had been to blame; and, if he were, he hoped to strike
a balance with his own conscience for having been friendly to Boonda
Broke, and to justify himself in his father's eyes. If he came through
all right, then "the Governor"--as he called his father, with the
friendly affection of a good comrade, and as all others in Mandakan
called him because of his position--the Governor then would say that
whatever harm he had done indirectly was now undone.

He got down at the Koongat Bridge, and his fingers were still in the
sorrel's mane when he heard the call of a bittern from the river bank.
He did not loose his fingers, but stood still and listened intently, for
there was scarcely a sound of the plain, the river, or jungle he did
not know, and his ear was keen to balance 'twixt the false note and the
true. He waited for the sound again. From that first call he could not
be sure which had startled him--the night was so still--the voice of a
bird or the call between men lying in ambush. He tried the trigger of
his pistol softly, and prepared to mount. As he did so, the call rang
out across the water again, a little louder, a little longer.

Now he was sure. It was not from a bittern--it was a human voice, of
whose tribe he knew not--Pango Dooni's, Boonda Broke's, the Dak