'No, Hoosanee. It is you who shall go on. Be silent! I cannot allow you to decide this. I have my reasons for what I am doing. Listen again! You shall take three of the Ghoorkas, and a runner to send back with intelligence as soon as you have gained it. I will take the others, and Billy who knows the people shall go with me. Come at once! I will divide provisions and send you on.' And so it was settled to Hoosanee's distress, for, although he saw at once that it was necessary to the success of his enterprise that he and his master should separate, he would have preferred to reserve to himself the more dangerous part. As for Tom, while he felt that the arrangement he had proposed was the only one which offered any hope of a good issue to their task, he was thankful to have succeeded in sending off Hoosanee to the higher latitudes. In the meantime, Bâl Narîn was far more useful to himself than even his own servant could have been. CHAPTER XXXVIII THE SHIKARI'S DISCOVERIES Very early the next morning the cavalcade divided. The released Ghoorka escorts returned to their regiments. Hoosanee, with good store of provisions and three mounted soldiers, went off in the direction of the pass, and Tom, accompanied by Bâl Narîn, turned off the main road to seek a byway through the jungle, which was known to his guide as having been used by criminals and fugitives, but which was little frequented by travellers. It is the fortunes of this last detachment that I propose to follow, my chief authority being Bâl Narîn, whom I met a few years ago--an old man then, but wonderfully clear as to intellect and memory--in his native city, Katmandoo. That it was a forlorn hope he had felt from the beginning, and nothing but his extraordinary regard for the young rajah, who, as he expressed it, 'held him by his eye,' would have induced him to go on with it. I find that he and others looked upon Tom as perfectly mad at the time. Many Orientals, however, and Bâl Narîn was fortunately amongst their number, look upon madness as men of a later time have looked upon inspiration. The man himself, they think, is helpless, and the Divine speaks and acts through him. This, no doubt, in addition to his peculiar fascinating power, was the cause of the faithfulness with which Tom was followed more than once in his desperate enterprises. Having been prevailed upon to go forward, Bâl Narîn acted as Subdul Khan and Hoosanee and Ganesh, and even Gambier Singh, so far as possible, had done. He gave himself heart and soul to the task before him.