'He will not want them any more----' 'We must burn him, Sahib. That is the burial for the Hindu-Saint. Before we leave this place we will fire the hut.' 'Could we do it now, while they are sleeping?' 'I am afraid of the flame spreading, Sahib. With the first break of day, I will set my torch to it, and we shall be far on our road before it blazes high.' Giving Kit over into Tom's arms. Bâl Narîn proceeded to make his arrangements. Out of the hermit's robe and the rajah's upper garment, and a long straight branch from the cotton-tree, he devised such a litter as could be carried on the shoulders of two men: then he took a parcel of dried twigs and grass into the hut, scattered them over the old hermit's body, and anointed them with oil. This done, he went outside again, cleared from the neighbourhood of the hut everything of an inflammable nature, cut two or three stout stakes from the cotton-tree, and hammered them into the ground at a sufficient distance from the hut to allow of their escaping from the fire that was presently to consume it. 'Rungya was a holy man,' he said, in explanation, 'and the time may come when his friends and disciples will wish to do honour to his ashes. We leave these stakes as a signal.' By the time all this was done the light of the morning was beginning to peep in the east, and the wild world of the jungle was sinking to rest. 'It is time for us to move,' said Bâl Narîn. Tom looked down regretfully at Grace's sleeping face. 'Couldn't we wait a little?' he said. 'It seems such a pity to disturb her.' 'We will not awake her,' said Bâl Narîn. 'Will his Excellency allow me?' Tom moved aside while, with a dexterous gentleness which he envied but could not emulate, the clever Ghoorka, who in his youth had served an enforced apprenticeship to a robber tribe in the plains, transferred the sleeping girl from her bed on the ground to her bed on the litter. Kit, in the meantime, had awoke. He was much stronger, he said, though to Tom his poor little legs looked piteously weak and slender. It was possible for him, however, to walk, and when he was tired Bâl Narîn said he would carry him on his shoulder. Then a match was applied to the touchwood under the hut; Grace, who had only stirred once, was lifted slowly and carefully to the shoulders of her bearers, and, with light hearts, they set out to rejoin the rest of their party on the robbers' road. * * * * * The sleep which had fallen upon Grace when she knew that her task was done, lasted for many hours. Passing through the air, resting for brief spells when the shoulder of the rajah, which was unaccustomed to weight-carrying, threatened to give way, taken up again with reverent care, and lifted skilfully over the various obstructions of the way, she neither moved nor spoke. Tom would, now and then, look at her with alarm; but Bâl Narîn smiled.