“But how did you find your way here, Bigg?” asked Sir Dugald, while Georgia was silent in dismay. “You know I was always fond of disguising myself and going about among the natives. Well, when I left Tajpur I made up my mind to wander about for a time as a _fakir_, and at last I got into Khemistan. Things were not so settled there then as they are now; St George Keeling was hard at work pacifying the country. I fell among thieves--that is, among the hillmen--who would not believe me when I said I was an Englishman, but were afraid to kill me lest it should turn out to be true after all. They compromised matters by making me a slave, and gave me a wretched time of it. At last the Ethiopians made a raid upon their villages, and I was so glad to see the tables turned that I joined the invaders, and helped them to get possession of the various strongholds. The hillmen were wiped out, and when the fighting was over the Ethiopians thought of me. They never imagined I was an Englishman, and I didn’t tell them. Well--I may as well make a clean breast of it--they offered me lands, and so on, and a command in their army if I would turn Mohammedan, thinking that I was an idolater, like the hillmen, and I had had time to recover a little from the knockdown blow Beatrice gave me, and life seemed worth living again, and I consented. It’s a sordid affair enough, you see--just a bartering of one’s conscience against life and wealth--and it was not worth it. I have tried it, and I have come to the conclusion that one’s wretched life is a poor exchange for country and religion. Another warning for you, young men.” “Then you rose to power after all?” said Sir Dugald.