e sharply.

"Not likely, my lad--no. He writes of his safe arrival at what he calls
the elephant-pens, and as a matter of course too late. The place is
quite deserted--not a man there--and the elephants have all been driven
off. But he adds that he is following up the trail as well as he can,
and that it is very hard to trace, because the great animals always step
into the old tracks, and you can't tell which are the new; but that he
means to follow them until he comes up to where they have been driven.
There, I have no more to say."

Archie, seeing that his presence was not needed, stepped out into the
darkness again, walking some minutes without any definite aim, till,
finding himself near the Doctor's bungalow, he thought he would call in
there and give him the news, such as it was.

But as he neared the gateway and saw through one of the open windows a
bent figure just shown up by the lighted lamp, his heart failed him, for
thoughts full of memories of the past came to him with a rush; and he
stepped on, when, just as he was at the end of the creeper-burdened
bamboo fence, a gruff voice exclaimed:

"Who's that? You, Maine?"

"Yes, sir."

"What is it? Want me?"

"No, sir. I was only just going by."

"Humph! That's a sign you're better. Why didn't you call in?"

"I hadn't the heart, sir. I could see Mrs Morley sitting there with
her head resting in her hand, and it set me thinking, sir."

"Good lad! Yes, of course. But she'd have taken it kindly, my lad, if
you had dropped in to see her now that she is in such trouble."

"But I was afraid she would think I had brought some news, sir, and then
she would have been disappointed."

"No, boy. She and I are both getting hardened to trouble now. We have
pretty well given up hoping for anything good. There, come in, my lad."

He laid his hand on Archie's shoulder, and they walked into the house
together, Mrs Morley startling the visitor as he noted how thin and
old-looking she had grown.

"Ah, Archie," she said, as he saw by the lamp that the tears had started
into her eyes, "I am so glad to see you--so much better, too. But--"

She turned quickly away, tearing her handkerchief from her pocket, and
the next minute she would have thrown herself sobbing in a chair but for
the entrance of one of the native maids, who in her broken English
announced that there were two people wanting to see the Doctor.

"Not the proper time for them to come," sai