There, stretched out on the cushions upon my back, gazing at the lamp, and with my ears all attent for the slightest sound--the right for danger, the left for my friends--thus I lay listening, till the lamp grew dim. The sounds of the forest were distant; and then I was at Brandscombe, busy with the notes of lectures, and in great trouble about something, but what I could not tell, only that the old professor of Sanscrit, with a long grey beard and much tangled hair, was leaning over me, his eyes wild and strange, his cheeks hollow, and a horrible look of fierce anger in his voice as he whispered hoarsely, evidently in disgust with my knowledge of the subject he taught. But what it was he whispered I could not tell, only that it chilled me and paralysed me when I wanted to struggle and get away from him. I tried hard, I knew, but it was all in vain, and an interminable time passed on, during which I lay helpless there, with the old professor whispering to me, and his face growing more and more terrible, till, to my terror, I saw that it was not the professor of Sanscrit, but the old fakir who had taken such a dislike to me; and, fully awake now, I found myself gazing up in his fierce eyes. For the nightmare had passed off, and in the reality I was gazing up at my enemy, who had evidently stolen into my tent, knife-armed--for there it was, gleaming in his hand--to rid himself and his country of an enemy of his religion and his race. And I could not move, even when I felt his left hand steal once into my breast, which hardly heaved, so utterly paralysed was I by my nightmare dream; ten times it seemed to me more terrible than the serpent I had found where the fakir's hand now lay. CHAPTER THIRTY NINE. In my horror, as I saw the knife flash, and as my senses became under my control, I was about to cry aloud for help, but grasping this, the hideous-looking being clapped his hand over my mouth, pressing it down tightly, while he quickly bent down his head till he could place his lips close to my ear, and whisper in English-- "Not a word, sahib! Don't you know me! I am Dost." I uttered a low sigh, and then gazed at him, sick and dizzy, but with my heart beginning to beat wildly with a strange delight. For at last help had come, and my task now was first to warn my faithful follower of the peril he had incurred, as I lay in mute admiration of the skill with which he had played his part, and, after struggling in vain to reach my well-watched tent, had by his ruse contrived to have himself brought to my side by my guards. The rest he had managed by himself. I could not speak for some minutes. I dared not even try, lest he should hear how my voice trembled. At last, though, after lying quite still, holding my faithful follower's hand, I whispered-- "How did you get here?" "Cut the bottom of the tent, sahib," he said in the same hard tone, "with this knife, and scrambled through."