Much of this was new to her, but it hung together with what she already knew; and yet it seemed incredible! What could be the object? What could they expect to do? Here Am-ma had smiled inscrutably, and said the Miss did not know bazaar talk. Everything was possible to it. Had they not even spoken of making a new Nawab out of Roshan Khân, the _risaldar?_ indeed, had not the _jemedar_ at the palace already treated him as one? And the Pool of Immortality? Had it risen or not? Am-ma could not say. They had asked him with bribes and threats to do the job--that was only the priest's revenge, but it would serve other purposes too--but he had refused, partly because he had to come away, and partly because he was the servant of the Light-bringers. As to when the prisoners were to escape he could not say. To-day, perhaps to-morrow, most likely never; unless something really happened. It was talk. The Miss need have no fear. The _Huzoors_, having the _Dee-puk-râg_, must needs be safe, and Carlone-_sahib_ was a real hero; none braver, none stronger. That decided her. She had been counting costs as she listened. An hour, say, back to Herrnhut. Even if anyone were there, which was uncertain, half an hour at least to start a messenger. Then the boat might be at the other side of the river. Then all those miles, on a rough road at night! "When shall we get to Eshwara?" she asked. "At the turn of the night and day if the river is kind," said Am-ma, but he looked doubtfully into a copper tint that remained in the sky, though the sun must have set behind the mountains. It had a curious effect, that copper-coloured dome above the rim of almost black hills, with the river, dark, mysterious, already beginning to slide towards the narrowing ravine. It did not strike her that she herself, adrift on that river in what was to be her wedding dress, with prehistoric, aboriginal Am-ma as pilot to her and a lumber raft, would have had a still more curious effect to a spectator's eyes. But there were none, and it was already almost dark. "Am-ma," she said, "I will give you fifty rupees, and keep my hand on the son's head, if you will leave the raft here, and take me as quick as you can to Eshwara--to the little steps below the fort--fifty whole rupees!" He shook his head and grinned, partly at his own superlative honesty. "We should not go so fast, _Huzoor_, now the slide is near," he said; "for, see you, the raft is the wood-_sahib's_ new shape. It is a good shape; it came down the rapids above the valley like a boat, faster than _this_, when the paddle cannot be used. It will take us with it. I will fasten _this_ behind, and steer. Then in the slacker water when the paddle is possible, we will leave it; if the Miss-_sahiba_ is in a hurry. But there is none. The _Huzoors_ are Light-bringers." He had already paddled alongside the raft,--a boat-shaped mass of huge logs rising towards the back--and, leaping to it, came back, after a moment, with the tow-rope.