It being evident that the rajah was not the object of Neranya’s movements, the anxiety which I had felt on that account was entirely dispelled, and I watched Neranya now only with a sense of absorbing interest and curiosity. The things which he had accomplished were entirely beyond the wildest imagination, and, in a sense, I was in a condition of helpless wonder. The sympathy which I had always felt for the unhappy man was now greatly quickened; and as small as I knew the chances of his ultimate escape to be, I nevertheless hoped that he would succeed. There was a bare chance that he would fall into the hands of the British soldiery not far away, and I inwardly prayed for his success. Any assistance from me, however, was out of the question; nor should it ever be known that I had witnessed the escape. Neranya was now upon the balcony, and I could dimly see him wriggling along as he slowly approached the door. The rail was low, and I could barely see him beyond it. Finally he stopped and wriggled to an upright position. His back was toward the hall, but he slowly turned around and faced me. At that great distance I could not distinguish his features, but the slowness with which he had worked, even before he had fully accomplished the ascent of the stairs, was evidence all too eloquent of his extreme exhaustion. Nothing but a most desperate resolution could have sustained him thus far, but he had about drawn upon the last remnant of his strength. He looked around the hall with a sweeping glance, and then upon the rajah, who was soundly sleeping immediately beneath him, over twenty feet down. He looked long and earnestly, sinking lower, and lower, and lower upon the rail. Suddenly, to my inconceivable astonishment and dismay, he toppled over and shot downward from his lofty height. I held my breath, expecting to see him crushed into a bloody mass on the stones beneath, but instead of that he fell full upon the rajah’s breast, crashing through the cot, and hurling him to the floor. I sprang forward with a loud cry for help, and was instantly at the scene of the disaster. Imagine my indescribable horror when I found that Neranya’s teeth were buried in the rajah’s throat! With a fierce clutch I tore the wretch away, but the blood was pouring out in torrents from the frightfully lacerated throat, the chest was crushed in, and the rajah was gasping in the death agony. People came running in, terrified. I turned to Neranya. He lay upon his back, his face hideously smeared with blood. Murder, and not escape, was his intention from the beginning; he had adopted the only plan by which there was a possibility of accomplishing it. I knelt beside him, and saw that he was dying--his back had been broken by the fall. He smiled sweetly into my face; and the triumphant look of accomplished revenge sat upon his face even in death. THE MAN-HUNTERS’ REWARD By Buckey O’Neill “That isn’t a bad reward!”