It was past two o'clock, and Aladin, the elephant-driver, had gathered together his usual audience under the shade of the mango tree near the elephant-shed. Aladin was a noted story-teller; he had a long memory, and an exhaustless fund of anecdote. It was ten years since he had come from Nepaul with Moula Piari, the big she-elephant, and for ten years he had delighted the inhabitants of the canal-settlement at Dadupur with his tales. It was his practice to tell one story daily, never more than one; and his time for this relaxation was an hour or so after the midday meal, when he would sit on a pile of _sal_ logs, under the mango tree, and his small audience, collecting round him in a semi-circle, would wait patiently until the oracle spoke. No one ever attempted to ask him to begin. Once Bullen, the water-carrier, the son of Bishen, after waiting in impatient expectation through ten long minutes of solemn silence, had suggested that it was time for Aladin to commence. At this the old man rose in wrath, and asking the water-carrier if he was his slave, smote him over the ear, and stalked off to the elephant-shed. For three days there was no story-telling, and Bullen, the son of Bishen, had a hard time of it with his fellows. Finally matters were adjusted; both Aladin and Bullen were persuaded by Gunga Din, the tall Burkundaz guard, to forget the past, and affairs went on in the old way. That was three years ago, but the lesson had not been forgotten. So although it happened on this April afternoon, that all the elephant-driver's old cronies were there,--Gunga Dino the Burkundaz, Dulaloo the white-haired Sikh messenger who had been orderly to Napier of Magdala, Piroo Ditta the telegraph-clerk, and Gobind Ram the canal-accountant, with a half-score others--yet not one of them ventured to disturb the silence of Aladin, as he sat, gravely stroking his beard, on the ant-eaten _sal_ logs which had mouldered there for so many years. They were the remains of a wrecked raft that had come down in a July flood, and having been rescued from the water, were stacked under the mango tree for the owner to claim. No owner ever came, but they had served as food for the white ants, and as a bench for Aladin, for many a year. The afternoon was delicious; a soft breeze was blowing, and the leaves of the trees tinkled overhead. Above the muffled roar of the canal, pouring through the open sluices, came the clear bell-like notes of a blackbird, who piped joyously to himself from a snag that stood up, jagged and sharp, out of the clear waters of the Some. To the north the Khyarda and Kalessar Duns extended in long lines of yellow, brown, and grey, and above them rose the airy outlines of the lower Himalayas, while higher still, in the absolute blue of the sky, towered the white peaks of the eternal snows. Beeroo, the Sansi, saw the group under the mango tree as he crossed the canal-bridge, and hastened towards it. Beeroo was a member of a criminal tribe, a tribe