with his family and five cows, all that he could save from the wreck, he escaped into British territory. But the two Ahabs were not satisfied. It was always believed that Tashi had managed to take some hoarded wealth with him, although he lived in a poor way and worked hard for his living in India. And this belief accounted for his capture on this occasion. On previous visits of the Envoy he and his family had taken the precaution to leave Chunabatti before his arrival. After his release Tashi resolutely refused to quit Buxa. "The Commanding Sahib is my father and my mother," he declared. "He has saved my worthless life," for he had been informed that he would be put to death as soon as he was out of British territory; "and I will not leave his shadow, in which I and my family will dwell the rest of our lives." However, he thought that this might not prove sufficient shelter from the weather; so he built a bamboo house in the cantonment limits and announced that he felt safe at last under our protection. Like all Asiatics he considered that my interference on his behalf had constituted a claim on me. However, as he was a useful man, I found employment for him and allowed him to continue to reside in Buxa. In the following year the Political Officer, accompanied by Captain Kennedy, I.M.S., passed through Buxa on their way to Bhutan, where the subsidy, now doubled, was paid in Punakha, the capital, and the treaty by which the country was placed under British protection signed by the Maharajah. So the Deb Zimpun and I never met again. There is a certain type of individuals with malformed minds who moan over the subjugation of the countries of barbarous nations by civilised Powers. Do they honestly believe that the cause of humanity is better served by allowing the noble savage to plunder and slay the weak at his own sweet will rather than by subjecting him to the domination of Europeans, be they French, Germans, Russians, Italians or British, who guarantee freedom of life and property in the lands under their rule? Liberty, with these barbarous races, means the liberty of the strong to oppress the weak. Here, in the borderland of Bhutan to-day, the peasant can till the soil, the trader enjoy his hard-earned wealth, where, before the _pax Britannica_ settled on it, rapine, blood, and lust went unchecked, where no man's life nor woman's honour was safe from the fierce raiders of the hills. We hold the gates of India. Inside them all is peace. Beyond them, oppression, injustice, murder! CHAPTER V IN THE JUNGLE