“You can soon guess. The next morning Karrah came back, professing repentance,” said Sir Harold. “I reproached myself for having been too harsh upon the poor untaught heathen, and took him back. He accompanied me upon that last ride, and was so humble, so deprecating, so gentle, that I even felt kindly toward him. We rode out into the jungle. I was in advance, riding slowly, and thinking of home, when suddenly a monstrous tiger leaped out of a thicket and fastened his claws in the neck of my horse. I fought the monster desperately, for he had pinned my leg to the side of my horse, and I could not escape from him. We had a frightful struggle, and I must have succumbed but for Karrah, who shot at the tiger, wounding him, I think, in the shoulder, and frightening him into retreat.” “And so you escaped, when we all thought you killed?” cried the major. “My horse was dying,” said the baronet, “and I was wounded and bleeding. I thought I was dying. I fell from my saddle to the ground, groaning with pain. Karrah came up, and bent over me, with a devilish smile and moistened my lips with brandy from a flask he carried. Then, muttering words in his own language which I could not understand, he carried me to his own horse, mounted, with me in his arms, and rode off in the direction in which we had been going, and away from your bungalow.” “The scoundrel! What was that for?” “After a half-hour’s ride, we came to a hollow, where three natives were camped. Karrah halted, and addressed them. They gathered around us, and then Karrah said to me, in English, that he hated me, that he would not kill me, but meant me to suffer, and that these men were his brothers, who lived a score of miles away up among the mountains. I was to be their slave. He transferred me to their care, disregarding my pleas and offered bribes, and rode away on his return to you. I was carried on horseback, securely bound, a score of miles to the north and westward. How I suffered on that horrible journey, wounded as I was, I can never tell you. A dozen times I thought myself dying.” “It is a wonder you did not die!” “It is,” said Sir Harold. “We went through savage jungles, and forded mountain torrents. We went up hill and down, and more than once leaped precipices. I was in a dead faint when we reached the home of the three Hindoos, but afterward I found how wild and secluded the spot was, and that there were no neighbors for miles around. Their cabin was niched in a cleft in a mountain, and hidden from the eye of any but the closest searcher. Had you searched for me, you would never have found me. It was in a rear hut, small and dark, with a mud floor, and windowless walls, that I have been a prisoner for fifteen months, major. My enemies, for the most part, left me to myself, and I have dragged out my weary captivity with futile plans of escape. Ah, I have known more than the bitterness of death!”