e haste!"

("Omar will never be dead so long as Bones quotes him," Hamilton once
said; "he simply couldn't afford to be dead and leave it to Bones!")

Ali rose, blinking and shivering, for the early morning was very cold,
and he had been sleeping under an old padded dressing-gown which Bones
had donated.

"Muster all the hands," said Bones, setting his lantern on the deck.

"Sir," said Ali slowly, "the subjects are not at our disposition. Your
preliminary instructions presupposed that you had made necessary
arrangements _re personnel_."

Bones scratched his head.

"Dash my whiskers," he said, in his annoyance, "didn't I tell you that I
was taking the honourable lady for a trip? Didn't I tell you, you jolly
old slacker, to have everything ready by daybreak? Didn't I issue
explicit an' particular instructions about grub?"

"Sir," said Ali, "you didn't."

"Then," said Bones wrathfully, "why the dickens do I think I have?"

"Sir," said Ali, "some subjects, when enjoying refreshing coma, possess
delirium, hallucinations, highly imaginative, which dissipate when the
subject recovers consciousness, but retain in brain cavity illusory
reminiscences."

Bones thrust his face into the other's.

"Do you mean to tell me I dreamt it?" he hissed.

"Sir," said Ali, "self-preservation compels complete acquiescence in
your diagnosis."

"You're childish," said Bones.

He gave a few vague instructions in the best Bones manner, and stole up
to the dark Residency. He had solemnly promised Sanders that he would
rouse the girl without waking up the rest of the house.

They were to go up stream to the Village Island, where the ironworkers
of the Akasava had many curious implements to show her. Breakfast was
to be taken on the boat, and they were to return for tiffin.

Overnight she had shown Bones the window of her room, and Hamilton had
offered to make a chalk mark on the sash, so there could be no mistaking
the situation of the room.

"If you wake me before sunrise, I shall do something I shall be sorry
for," he warned Bones. "If you return without straightening the
accounts, I shall do something which _you_ will be sorry for."

Bones remembered this as he crept stealthily along the wooden verandah.
To make doubly sure, he took off his boots and dropped them with a
crash.

"Sh!" said Bones loudly. "Sh, Bones! Not so much noise, you silly old
ass!"

He crept softly along the wooden wall and reconnoitred. The middle
w