Thus the weary hours passed, until even to the dulled perceptions of Moreen the sounds of unrest and uneasiness pervading the camp began to penetrate. Yet Major Fayne did not return. The insect and reptile life of a Burmese jungle moved around her, but she was curiously indifferent to everything. Without alarm she brushed a venomous spider, fully one inch in girth, from the camp-bedstead, and dully watched it darting away into the jungle undergrowth.
Darkness swept down and tropical night things raised their mingled voices; then came Ramsa Lal.
“Forgive me, Mem Sahib,” he said, “but I must speak to you.”
She half reclined, looking at him as he stood, a dimly seen figure, before her.
“The men from the village,” continued he, “come to say that we may not camp. It is holy ground from this place away”—he waved his arm vaguely—“to the end of the jungle where the river is.”
“I can do nothing, Ramsa Lal.”
“I fear—for him.”
“Major Fayne?”
“He goes into the jungle to look for something. What does he go to look for? Why does he not return?”