"It is only because he is in a hurry to get away himself, I verily believe," said Sonny's mother, when the doctor, also vaguely impressed with something in the man's appeal, told her of it. "You can't fathom these people. Oh! I know he wouldn't abate one atom of his care, and it is simply wonderful. All the same, I believe that just now he would be glad to be rid of the necessity for it, since it clashes with some of his religious notions. That's it, depend upon it. And I mean to let him go as soon as Sonny--I mean Harry--is better; and he really is better to-day, isn't he?" "Much better. And you may be right; only it's always impossible to lay down the law for men like Bisra. Those high-caste hill Brahmins are a law unto themselves. However, I expect to find the boy quite cool to-morrow." He was not, however, and more than once, as he lay in Bisra's arms, the little fretful wail rose between sleeping and waking. "Where's the Noose, Bisra? I want the Noose." And Bisra would pause as if waiting for a promise of wayward life in threat or abuse, and when neither came would turn a wistful appeal to authority, and when it was silent say-- "What Noose, Shelter of the World?" But in the dead of night a day or two later, when even maternal authority slept for a brief spell, Bisra's answer to the request, which came almost incoherently from the child's dry lips, was different. Then he stood bent over the boy's cot in the attitude of a suppliant, and his joined petitioning hands trembled. "Why dost ask it, Kâli ma?" he whispered rapidly. "Lo! have I not served thee? Would I not serve thee now if I could? But I have promised this, and they will not let me go for the other. Lo! Kâli ma! be merciful and ask no more, and when the child has gone away, I will serve thee all the years--yea! every day of all the years." There was no passion, no excitement in his face or voice; only that pathetic appeal which passed into a murmured lullaby as the restless little sleeper turned on his pillow with a sigh of greater content. "Better again this morning," was the doctor's verdict, with the rider that Bisrâm himself stood in need of a little rest. The man smiled faintly when his mistress replied that it would be her turn that night; though, to say sooth, Harry certainly did seem to improve when she slept. "Perhaps Bisrâm works charms," remarked the doctor, thoughtlessly; whereat she frowned. Charms or no charms, the boy was certainly worse next morning, and that despite the fact that Bisrâm, who had steadily refused to go further than the verandah, had spent the night huddled up outside the threshold, within which his mistress refused to allow him to come. He needed rest, she said, and though she could not compel him to take it, he should at least not work.