'Ah! I was burning to speak, but I dared not. Our safety and yours depended on the fidelity with which I was able to play my part. I had to be the Indian rajah, and nothing else. A word in English might have lost us. But my happiness in knowing that it was you whom we had helped was none the less, I can assure you. And your companions—how are they?'

'So well, poor boys, that they are burning to be on the move! The Resident can scarcely keep them quiet. It was a happy Providence that brought you our way.'

'Happy for me,' said Tom feelingly. 'Do you know that you gave us the clue we wanted? My artful servant,' he smiled——

'Now,' broke in Mrs. Lyster, with Irish impetuosity, 'that is really too bad of you. You heard what I said.'

'I said to myself then that I would make you laugh about it later,' said Tom. 'But come into the summer-house. Oh!' as she continued to look at him questioningly, 'I will tell you all about it presently. I am not so much of an imposition as you imagine.'

He turned to the others, and gave them a cheerful good-morning. It was such a meal as he had often shared in the verandahs of English bungalows. A silver urn, over which Mrs. Durant presided, steamed at one end of the table, where tea and coffee were being made in the most approved English fashion, and white bread, cakes hot from the oven, platters of snowy rice, scrambled eggs and curried fowl were being laid out daintily by the well-trained attendants.

'How delightful this is!' said Tom. 'It seems like coming home. No, no, Mrs. Durant,' as she handed him a cup of tea. 'I am not so much of a prince as all that. Help the others first! It is too much happiness to have my friends here to wait upon. What!' looking back at the face of one of the attendants.

The man grinned from ear to ear, showing a row of perfect teeth. 'Excellency, the little Sahib would have it so!' he said in broken Hindoostani.

'So you and Bâl Narîn are inseparables, are you?' said Tom to Kit. 'What will you do when he goes back to Nepaul?'

'He mustn't go,' said Kit stoutly. 'You want a shikari here.'