“Well,” said Dick, “I remember that sermon very well, because I was panting the whole time to get away. I thought that some day, when old Faiz-Ullah was saying his prayers, I might crawl past him, and slip out. I did manage to crawl to the entrance, though I thought I should have died in doing it, but when I got there I found only a precipice in front. At the side was a rope-ladder by which my elderly friend was accustomed to get to the spot where his food was left, but of course I could as soon have flown as climbed it. I simply lay there like a log, until the old fellow happened to miss me, and came to look. I must have got a touch of fever or sunstroke, for I had awful nightmares after that--oh, horrors and tortures beyond conception! Faiz-Ullah must have been frightened, for at last he made me understand that he had seen the Begum’s servant, and she was going to try and bring my wife to cure me. That set me off on a new tack. The horrors went on just the same, but Georgia was always there, on the other side of a gulf, and I couldn’t get at her. She knows how much I wanted her”--he stole a glance at Georgia, down whose face the tears were streaming--“but I don’t think any one else can ever guess how bad it was. Well, she didn’t come, as you know, but the old woman who had tried to fetch her sent me a message, which I suppose she took the trouble to invent, just to satisfy me. If I insisted upon it, Georgia would come, she said, but to reach me she must run the gantlet of so many dangers that it was scarcely possible she could get through. Was she to come? I’m thankful to remember that I had strength of mind enough to say she wasn’t to think of it. Of course she couldn’t get the message, but a man doesn’t like to feel----” “Oh, Dick, as if I should have thought of the danger!” murmured Georgia. “We know you didn’t, Mrs North,” said Colonel Graham, “and that’s why I agree with North that it’s a good thing he left off calling you.”