"I'm afraid not. There's nothing to make it with." "That's a pity. You ought to get dry. Let me think it out." Raynier marvelled, and well he might. What sort of a woman was this? Any other woman who had ever come within his experience would not have behaved like this. She would probably have begun by abusing him roundly for ever bringing her into such a hobble at all. Once in it, she would have grumbled and whined, or hysterically howled. She would have been full of herself and her own miserable plight, and what _she_ should do, and what would become of _her_, and so forth. But this one--her chief thought seemed to be for him. She didn't seem to think of herself at all. "Great Heavens, Miss Clive!" he burst forth, "what does it matter whether _I_ am dry or wet. It is of you I am thinking--of you, who have to get through this abominable night somehow. Why, it is nothing to me--but what about you?" "But I have never had fever." The answer came so equably, so matter-of-fact in tone, yet Raynier's quick ear thought to detect something further. He turned straightway and began vehemently haranguing Mehrab Khan. The place to which the latter had brought them afforded shelter from the rain, though little or none from the piercing wind. A great slab of rock overhung, yawning outward like an open mouth. Now Mehrab Khan astonished them still further, for, from a cleft at the back of the hole, he produced some billets of dry juniper wood. It would burn wretchedly, he explained apologetically, but was better than nothing. The place had been an old resort of mountain herdsmen, and the wood had been kept ready stored for emergencies. And then, still further amazement followed, for Mehrab Khan produced--this time from his own store--a little rice and corn meal tied up in a rag. Would the _Huzoor_ deign to accept it for himself and the Miss Sahib? he said. It was poor fare, but it might be better than nothing. This, then, was the man for whose good faith he had feared, thought Raynier, inwardly ashamed, and then again came the whimsical thought of contrast, and the highest official in the district becoming dependent on the Levy Sowar's humble store, yet not for himself. But Hilda Clive looked at it, then beamed on the giver. "What will he do?" she asked. "It is all he has." "What then? Let the Miss Sahib take what Allah provides through His slave and praise Him. More can be provided, and will be," was the answer of the follower of the Prophet to the follower of the Redeemer. Said the latter,-- "The blessings of Allah be upon you, Mehrab Khan, and that of His Prophet." And Raynier again translating, the fine face of the Baluchi beamed in turn. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. IN THE MIST.