They were gone, and Lena lingered a moment, fastening her dearly-bought bauble around her neck and gathering her books, while a maid came scudding from the house to bundle rugs and cushions away in face of the thunder-heads looming in the southwest. A sudden sibilant sound brought Lena to attention. "Mrs. Percival!" she heard. "Look up." Among the branches over her head the leaves were drawn so closely together that only a few faint glimmers of white showed, and the brilliant eyes that glared down at her were the most conspicuous things she saw. "Listen and reply not," he said. "You will bring a dark and large great-coat, and other dark garments that you can find, and leave them here with swiftness and secrecy. I command you. If you do not obey, I will make it the worse for you." He snarled suddenly, and Lena jumped back as though a tiger had sprung at her throat. The face disappeared among the leaves, and Lena sped toward the house, hastened by a crash of thunder and a few great drops, that seemed to her frightened imagination like the servants of the savage creature that she had left in the tree-tops. She slipped out again, in spite of wind and rain, obedient to his command, and as she dropped her bundle at the foot of the tree trunk, she whispered, "I hope, oh, I hope that you will get away!" But she heard no reply. The storm came down and the night fell, seamed with lightning. Lena quietly ate her dinner, and listened to the well-bred calm voice of her mother-in-law as she wondered what Dick was doing, and when he would be at home again. But Lena wondered what Ram Juna was doing, and whether she should ever see him again. CHAPTER XX A LIGHT FROM THE EAST GOES OUT To be in the heart of a great country, fifteen hundred miles from the Atlantic, and two thousand miles from the Pacific, to be forbidden the public highway of the train, and to have one's objective point India,--this is by no means an easy problem, even to the oriental mind. And who could know what was going on in the being that crept away into the storm, strong with the instinct of hiding and of cunning. He must have balanced all things. To go westward, where the great steamers plied toward the Orient, this would seem the natural course; and yet that way lay interminable prairies and empty stretches, and again deserts and piled mountains, without shelter and without food. It is easier to hide among people than amid solitudes. On crowded city streets, we jostle without seeing.