"My lord, no. The man was seized, and in the fight he fell, and we thought him dead, for he was bleeding. Then we held the English lord here, and when we went to pick up the man, he was gone." "Then he has escaped?" The man remained silent, and Ny Deen turned to me with his eyes full of mockery and a strange light, as they flashed in the glare of the torches. "Well," he said, "are you satisfied?" "Yes," I replied, "if it is true." "It is true enough," he said carelessly. "Come." He signed to me to approach his side, and to my surprise, instead of my being led off as a prisoner, the rajah laid his hand upon my shoulder, and walked by me as if nothing had happened, right back to my room, when he threw himself upon the cushions and laughed. "You foolish boy!" he said good-humouredly; "how could you be so weak as to commit such a folly. I am angry with you, not for offending me, for I suppose it was natural, but for lowering yourself so before my people, forcing me to have you--the man I meant to be my chief officer--hunted like an escaping prisoner. You might have been killed in your mad climbing, or by my people by accident in a struggle. That man came and tempted you to go?" "I wanted no tempting," I replied. "It is a pity," he said, after a moment's pause. "You degraded yourself, and you lowered me before my people." "I want my liberty," I cried angrily. "Well, boy, I offer you liberty," he said quietly; "liberty and honour. I only stand in your way when I see that, in a blind madness, you are going to rush headlong to destruction. You do not know; I do." I was silent. "Where would you have gone to-night," he said, "supposing that you had not fallen and killed yourself, or been cut down by my guards?" "To my friends." "You have no friends," he said sternly. "You would have escaped, perhaps, to the wild country or the forest to starve, or to be killed by the wild beasts. No one would give you food, and you would scarcely have found one who would not have sought to slay you as an enemy. You say you would, have fled to your friends. Where are they?" "You should know best," I said sullenly. "You have been fighting with them." "Yes," he cried, with his eyes flashing. "I have been fighting with enemies of my country. I have nothing to hide from you. I will tell you all, so that you may know, and see how mad it is for you to fight against the decrees of fate. Yes, I fought with those you call your friends to-day, and drove them before me till after sundown. My men are following them now to complete the pursuit, scattering them like dead leaves before the blast which heralds the monsoon. You heard the firing?" "Yes," I said sadly.