Sitting by the mere, and listening absently to the jabber and turmoil of the camp, where buying and selling and wrangling and gossiping were going briskly forward, Tom watched the curious scene. He was trying to devise some scheme either of escape or of making his situation known to Chunder Singh, when, suddenly, and in obedience to no act of volition of his own, so at least it seemed to himself, the current of his thought changed. It darted upon him with the force of an electric current that the scene upon which he was gazing was not new. The livid sky behind the mud walls of the village, the blood-red pavement at his feet, the fierce dark faces about him, surely, in some other life, he had seen them before. A moment more, and he remembered. He was living again over the strange night when all the conditions of his life were changed; his feet trod the banks of the stream that washed the gardens of his tranquil home; the dawn, the sweet dawn of an English June, was breaking, and the trees that he knew and loved were swaying to and fro over his head to the delicious breeze of the morning. _Then_ he had seen _this_! It was his dream, his very dream; but not all! The effect upon his mind was overpowering. His strength, and the presence of mind, upon which he had always relied, seemed to be oozing away. Fate! Fate! and no hand of man was fighting against him! What could he do but submit? Shuddering, he covered his face with his hands. He must hide it away. He must forget. He must clear his mind from the stupefaction that was stealing over it, or all would be lost. But it was in vain, for, with his every effort, he seemed only to sink more deeply into despondency and bewilderment. Suddenly a sound came to him. It was as vivid to his sense as is the light of morning to the belated traveller--a voice clear and strong. 'Why,' it said, 'should this thing startle you? If a vision was granted to you, if you saw, beforehand, what would be in the future, and if now the vision is followed by what is, or appears to be, a reality, is that any reason why your strength and presence of mind should desert you?' A pause, and then, answering the thought of his heart, the voice went on, 'Fate! That is true. Everything is fate. But our resistances are predicted and foreseen as well as our trials. Arise and be of good cheer. This is no omen of evil, but rather of good. You say that the vision is not over. Again you are right. There is more to come, and in due time and place you will behold it; but tie not your limbs from present use in consideration of that which they may have to do in the future. In coming hither you have chosen rightly. She, like you, must "dree her dread"; but the Holy Ones love her, and will have her in Their keeping. Listen!'