'It was by the merest chance that it all happened. For the latter part of their miserable journey--it had lasted a week when we rescued them--she had been given a small covered bullock-cart, such as native women travel in. At the last stage, when a halt was called, the cart was drawn into what seemed to her to be a large market-place. It was mid-day, she said, and their escort and the people of the village where they were halting appeared to be asleep, for there was no noise. She tried to sleep too. She thinks she did drop into a doze; but she always slept with one ear open, and the sound of low whispering close under the cart aroused her. One of the side curtains was lifted, and a face peered in. It was not an angry face. It was an inquisitive face. The face withdrew, and another took its place. This one gazed at her with considerably more attention. But it, too, withdrew. She was now thoroughly awake, and a little startled. She crept to the side of the cart where she had seen the faces, and laid her ear against the curtain. An altercation was going on. Words that might be rendered in English as, "She is!" "She is not!" "I'm certain," "So am I;" "You are a fool!" "I'm not: you are!" were being bandied from mouth to mouth. All she could gather at first was that both of the men had thought they recognised her, and that they did not take her to be the same person. But why this interest? She continued to listen, and it seemed to her presently that the man who spoke in negatives had convinced his companion. His name was Tikaram. When they settled down to confidential talk, she heard him say distinctly that he was in search of an English girl and a fair-haired boy, who, he was led to believe, had been taken prisoners by Dost Ali Khan. A third man joined the conference, who, from the way in which he spoke, she judged to be a disarmed and fugitive sepoy. He was working his way into Nepaul, and appeared to be in great dread of the swamps that have to be crossed before the mountain kingdom is reached. In the course of conversation he mentioned having heard of English fugitives going that way. 'I can write of it calmly now--too calmly--for I am becoming accustomed to cruel shocks, and my heart, I think, is growing callous; but, when I heard it first, when I tried to realise that my tender and delicate Grace might be entangled in the meshes of the pestilential, tiger-haunted district which I had crossed in the winter, my heart, I confess, nearly failed me.