'Ay, as they would drive Eblis if I gave the order. They are my eyes and more to me.'

'Look to it, then, that Eblis does not carry a double-rifle. They have yet something to learn, thy devils, for they stand one behind the other, so that two shots would kill the three.'

'Ah, but they know they will be thy servants as soon as I am a forest-guard.'

'Guard or no guard, Mowgli, thou hast done a great shame to Abdul Gafur. Thou has dishonoured his house and blackened his face."

6

For that, it was blackened when he took thy money, and made blacker still when he whispered in thy ear a little while since to kill a naked man. I myself will talk to Abdul Gafur, for I am a man of the Government service, with a pension. He shall make the marriage by whatsoever rite he will, or he shall run once more. I will speak to him in the dawn. For the rest, the Sahib has his house and this is mine. It is time to sleep again, Sahib.'

Mowgli turned on his heel and disappeared into the grass, leaving Gisborne alone. The hint of the wood-god was not to be mistaken, and Gisborne went back to the bungalow, where Abdul Gafur, torn by rage and fear, was raving aloud.

'Peace, peace,' said Gisborne, shaking him, for he looked as though he were going to have a fit. 'Muller Sahib has made the man a forest-guard, and

as thou knowest there is a pension at the end of that business, and it is Government service.'

'He is an outcaste-a mlech-a dog among dogs; an eater of carrion! What pension can pay for that?'

'Allah knows, and thou hast heard that the mischief is done. Wouldst thou blaze it to all the other servants? Make the shadi swiftly, and the girl will make him a Mussalman. He is very comely. Canst thou wonder that after thy beatings she went to him?' 'Did he say that he would chase me with his beasts?'

'So it seemed to me. If he be a wizard, he is at least a very strong one.'

Abdul Gafur thought awhile, and then broke down and howled, forgetting that he was a Mussal

man:

'Thou art a Brahmin. I am thy cow. Make thou the matter plain, and save my honour if it can be saved!'

A second time then Gisborne plunged into the rukh and called Mowgli. The answer came from high overhead, and in no submissive tones.

'Speak softly,' said Gisborne, looking up. There is yet time to strip thee of thy place and hunt thee with thy wolves. The girl goes back to her father's house to-night. To-morrow there will be the shadi, by the Mussalman law, and then thou canst take her away. Bring her to Abdul Gafur.'

'I hear.' There was a murmur of two voices conferring among the leaves. Also, we will obey-for the last time.'

A year later Muller and Gisborne were riding through thẻ rukh together, talking of their business. They came out among the rocks near the Kanye stream, Muller riding a little in advance. Under the shade of a thorn thicket sprawled a naked brown baby, and from the brake immediately behind him peered the head of a gray wolf. Gisborne had just time to strike up Muller's rifle, and the bullet tore spattering through the branches above.

'Are you mad?' thundered Muller. 'Look!'

'I see,' said Gisborne quietly. The mother's somewhere near. You'll wake the whole pack, by Jove!'

The bushes parted once more, and a woman unveiled snatched up the child.

"Who fired, Sahib ?' she cried to Gisborne.

"This Sahib. He had not remembered thy man's people.'

'Not remembered! But indeed it may be so, for we who live with them forget that they are strangers at all. Mowgli is down the stream catching fish. Does the Sahib wish to see him? Come out, ye lacking manners. Come out of the bushes, and make your service to the Sahib.'

Muller's eyes grew rounder and rounder. He

swung himself off the plunging mare and dismounted, while the jungle gave up four wolves who fawned round Gisborne. The mother stood nursing her child and spurning them aside as they brushed against her bare feet.

'You were quite right about Mowgli,' said Gisborne. 'I meant to have told you, but I've got so used to these fellows in the last twelve months that it slipped my mind.'

'Oh, don't apologise,' said Muller. It's nothing. Gott in Himmel! "Und I work miracles-und dey come off too!"

'BRUGGLESMITH.'

This day the ship went down, and all hands was drowned but me. CLARK RUSSELL.

THE first officer of the Breslau asked me to dinner on board, before the ship went round to Southampton to pick up her passengers. The Breslau was lying below London Bridge, her fore-hatches opened for cargo, and her deck littered with nuts and bolts, and screws and chains. The Black M'Phee had been putting some finishing touches to his adored engines, and M'Phee is the most tidy of chief engineers. If the leg of a cockroach gets into one of his slide-valves the whole ship knows it, and half the ship has to clean up the

mess.

After dinner, which the first officer, M'Phee, and I ate in one little corner of the empty saloon, M'Phee returned to the engine-room to attend to some brassfitters. The first officer and I smoked on the bridge and watched the lights of the crowded shipping till it was time for me to go home. It seemed, in the pauses of our conversation, that I could catch an

Copyright, 1891, by Harper & Brothers.