For the first few moments her mind was too weak to be able to take in anything more than this: she was with her own people: she was travelling back into the past: some day, if God was gracious to her, she might see her mother and her sisters again: she might give up her darling Kit to his friends. Then, gradually, as her mind grew stronger, the events of the night, and of the days that had preceded it, shaped themselves before her. They had been on their way to Nepaul. The good Rungya, who had rescued them one night from a horde of brutal villagers, had promised to take them thither, and place them under the protection of the minister, Jung Bahadoor. They had crossed the plains and entered one of the great sâal-forests of the Terai together. Then their cart broke down, and the animals sickened, and word came to them that a party of fugitive sepoys, who had taken up robbery as a profession, were haunting the great highway. So they turned aside, walking painfully on foot through the jungle, till they reached the Aswalia village. They had scarcely left it before Kit sickened with the fever. They carried him on between them, hoping to reach opener ground, where they might rest, when Rungya bethought him of the clearing into which they turned. A holy man, a Brahmin, who had passed through his life's different stages, and who was preparing himself in solitude and meditation for his eternal rest, lived there once. Rungya had visited him when his own life was lusty within him, and had kissed his feet reverently as a spiritual teacher. It could not be that the holy man was alive still; but his hut, which even the savage tribes of the jungle would respect, might be standing, and it, for a few days, would afford them shelter. Before they reached it Kit began to mend; but Rungya was stricken down. For two days Grace tended him as if she had been his daughter. On the third day he died; and then began that awful struggle between the heroic girl and the wild things of the wilderness, which had nearly reached its limit when Bâl Narîn found her. How long it lasted she could not tell--neither could Kit. When it began they had water and rice, and faggots for firing; when it ended their little stock was exhausted. She dared not leave the hut so much as to cut a stick of wood or fill her brass lota with water at the pool. It was like a horrible siege. The wild things without; she and her dead and dying within. Slowly and painfully her mind travelled on. She remembered the determined attitude of the three great birds, and her own wild tempest of passion. She remembered vividly the ping of the shikari's bullet, and the fall of her enemies, and his friendly address. After that came a terror which she only dimly recalled, and which was followed by a blank--a peaceful falling away into forgetfulness. That she had been taken from her dangerous position, and that she had heard Kit laughing and talking beside her was all she knew for certain.