They made him up his usual evening meal, a mess of rice and fried vegetables; but he could not eat a morsel. Mounting his horse, he rode slowly back to the point where he had seen Bâl Narîn last. Here he whistled, cried out, tried to ride through the kutcha-grass; but was driven back by the venomous tribes of insects that had come out with the dying down of the day; then realising that these spasmodic efforts were perfectly useless, he returned to the road, and paced back sadly and slowly, seeing no signs of Bâl Narîn anywhere. The camp was illuminated by gleaming brands set high on poles, and the little cooking-fires were smouldering in its midst. It made a spot of glowing red in the spectral darkness; where everything but it was being slowly obliterated. Tom would have preferred the darkness; but he knew very well that in the jungle he was surrounded with nameless dangers. If he did not wish to give his body for a meal to the beasts of prey that were ranging it, he must keep in the neighbourhood of his companions. So, trying to still his fiery impatience, he lay down where they had spread his canvas sheets, drew a gauze net over his face, and lighted a pastile to keep the cloud of insects at a distance. I have spoken of Tom's gift of sleeping at will. Even in this terrible emergency it did not desert him. He had learned a few lessons, however, in his life of adventure, and it would not have been so easy now as on his first expedition to steal a march upon him. The sleep, light and brief as it was, refreshed and invigorated him. When, having indulged in it for about two hours, he sprang up and looked round, he found that the feverish madness of excitement which, if given place to, would have unfitted him for work that needed decision and readiness, had gone. His brain was clear, and his limbs had lost their languor. In the encampment everything was as it had been. The fires were smouldering and the torches flamed. Two Ghoorkas were on guard. The rest slept, while the camel-drivers, syces, and coolies sat doubled up together, their knees touching their noses, near the beasts of burden which were tethered in the centre of the encampment. It was dead night; but the darkness was not such as it had been earlier, for a three-quarter moon had come up from her bed of snows behind awful Himâla and was shedding over the desolate land a pale light, which, defective as it was, Tom hailed with pleasure. 'You have often been my friend, Lady Moon,' he said, as he gazed up into the vapour-veiled sky, 'and though you don't shine as you do in the plains, I think you will give me light enough to see what I am doing.' One of the Ghoorka sentinels, in the meantime, seeing him on his feet, had approached him. 'Does the Rajah Sahib require anything?' he asked. 'I want to know if Bâl Narîn has been seen,' said Tom. 'Bâl Narîn has not come back to camp,' answered the man.