I was perfectly delighted at this, for I knew the men by this time to be pleasant, good-tempered fellows, who would play me no tricks by the way, and then they were going home, and would not dally by the journey as strangers might be tempted to do. Preparations were at once made to start back immediately. The chair was brought round to the door, and the men with beaming faces and as fresh-looking as though they had done nothing all day, started back on the long weary journey of fully twenty miles. Once more we were retracing our way through the long, winding streets of the city, and then we emerged through the gates into the open country beyond. A haze of heat lay upon the fields and on the hills. The afternoon sun, still breathing out fire, glared into the chair and shone upon my face and played upon the bare skulls of the bearers. Surely that fierce heat would break their spirit, for I began to feel limp and fagged, though the only exertion I had to make was to try and keep cool by fanning myself. As the afternoon went on, the steps of the bearers became less elastic, and when we rested at the regular stopping-places, they were less eager in resuming their journey. Beyond this, they seemed as vigorous as ever, and forged their way through villages, and past market towns, and round the foot of hills glowing with amber colours that were flung there with the lavish hand of the fast-descending sun. We reached home long after darkness had settled on the landscape, and had blotted out the hills around which the clouds had gathered to let the sun paint his evening pictures. We could hear the rustling of the rice, as the night wind sighed amongst it, and sometimes we would be startled by the sudden looming up of trees like huge fantastic spectres that had escaped from the land of darkness to terrify men by their presence. Travelling in the dark was not an easy matter, for we had to pick our way over narrow uneven pathways, and across broken dilapidated bridges, and over stepping-stones in a mountain brook, till finally, worn out and wearied to death, we stumbled down the dark street that led to our home, and there I threw myself into the first chair I could find, utterly exhausted by a journey that few men would undertake even in the coldest days in winter. The chair-bearers, after a few whiffs at their bamboo pipes, started to light the furnace and cook their supper. All the weariness they had shown during the last hour or two seemed to have vanished, and they laughed and chatted about the incidents on the road and the funny sights they had seen. One chopped the wood, whilst the other washed the rice and poured it into the cauldron, and prepared the vegetables they were to eat with it.