'My good Hoosanee,' said Tom very gently. 'Do you not see that it is of you I am thinking? You are ill. You cannot deny it.' 'If that is all,' said Hoosanee rising, 'I will venture to disobey your Excellency's command.' 'How? you will be rebellious!' said Tom smiling. 'I will do what I know is for the best. Does my master think that he could go on without me?' 'But consider, Hoosanee--if you were really ill----! 'Master, if I die, I die. I will never be burdensome to you. Let me go on!' 'If you must, there is no more to be said. But the responsibility is your own,' said Tom gravely. The Ghoorkas meanwhile had been discussing their plans. When, looking radiant, Hoosanee stood aside, one of them stepped forward, and spoke. The rajah, he said, had spoken well. If some of them must die, there was no reason why all should meet with the same fate, and, in the province whence they had come, good men were wanted. They proposed that six of the strongest from the two escorts should be chosen to attend the rajah on his farther journey, and that the rest should return to their captain. Tom thanked them, and gave orders that all arrangements should be made for the breaking up of the party. When they had withdrawn he held a further consultation with Hoosanee and the cleverest of his Ghoorka guides. This man had felt the curious magnetic power which Tom generally exercised over Orientals, and had become almost as much devoted to him as his own servants. Uninvited, he had joined the conference, and he now threw himself at his feet and, having begged that he might be one of those whose services he would retain, answered, with readiness and perfect knowledge, his questions about the country. No one, as it happened, could have been better acquainted with the low country that lies at the foot of the hills which separate the Nepaul valley from the plains of North-West India. The jungle-fever had no power over him. He breathed more freely on this pestilential plain than in the high mountain valleys. Moreover, the wild tribes, or Aswalias, as they are generally called, who inhabited the jungle of the Terai, knew and respected him. Had he not again and again brought down great Shikaris, or hunters from the hills, who slew the tigers that devastated their fields and carried off their little ones? The great reptiles themselves that, like malignant spirits, shuddered through the long grass of the jungle, had no terror for Bâl Narîn, and he carried with him potions and unguents that could steal the poison from the deadliest snake-bites. Though a Ghoorka, therefore, and, as such, a natural enemy of the wild Aswalias, he had long been counted their friend. Bâl Narîn shared his countrymen's admiration for Europeans, of whom he had been frequently the companion and guide. It was to fit himself for their service that he had practised Hindoostani, which he spoke with quite sufficient ease to carry on a conversation,