At length a young Baboo from Allahabad was put forward--a keen, intelligent, brisk-looking youth, wearing a velvet cap and patent leather boots, embellished with mother-of-pearl buttons. “Twenty years ago I dwelt in Bareilly,” he said. “There were four of us children, my mother, and my father, who was sick unto death. The jail daroga, who was his kinsman, came to him privily one night, and whispered long. I was awake, being an-hungered, and heard all that was said. “‘Lo! Gunesheb, thou art my kinsman. Thou art poor and sick, thy days are numbered; wouldst thou die a rich man?’ “‘Would I die in Paradise?’ said my father. “‘A gang of convicts pass here to-morrow, on their way to Calcutta and Moulmein beyond the sea. Wilt thou take the place of one of them? Thou art his size and height; thou hast not long to live, he has a strong young life; and in return for thy miserable body he will give four hundred rupees, ten pairs of pearls, one pair of gold bangles, and three ponies.’ “My father went forth that same hour with the jail daroga, and returned no more. Next day my mother wept sore; yea, even though she had gold bangles on her arms, very solid, and pearls and silver in a cloth; also there were three ponies, strong and fat, in our yard. Later, she took us to see when the convicts passed along the road, and we rode on the ponies beside them for two days. She told the warders she had a brother, falsely accused, who was in the gang. He wore a square cap pulled far over his eyes, and he coughed as he marched. As we left, he embraced me tenderly, by favour of the warders. I knew he was my father. Afterwards we went south, and returned to Bareilly no more.” Thus Gunesheb had bartered away his few remaining months of life for the benefit of his family, and Naim Sing had spread a bold free wing, and enjoyed his liberty for twenty years! He had the ceaseless craving of a born hill-man to return to the mountains. The line of snows edging the burnt-up plains had drawn him like a magnet. Slowly but surely, becoming reckless with time and impunity, he had cast fear and caution to the winds, as once more the smell of the pine-needles and of the wood smoke crept into his blood! As he sat in the dock, the prisoner deliberately scanned every face with an air of lofty indifference. He swore to the last that “he was Krookia, the son of Rusool Sing,” but no respectable land-owner identified him under that name. Moreover, the wife of Naim Sing had been recognized at her native place wearing her rings and bangles, sure and certain token that her husband was _alive_; and in the face of overwhelming evidence, the culprit was sentenced for the second time on the same spot to be transported beyond the seas for the term of his natural life.