Beresford, it is Forrester."

At first the man appeared not to have understood, but after a few moments a look of dread gathered in his eyes, and he struggled to get up. Gently pressing him down Forrester said, in slow, clear tones:--

"You are with friends. You came towards our light, you remember. Won't you lie still and collect yourself, and tell me about it? 'Pull yourself together,' you know?"

"Pull yourself together!" the man repeated, like a child.

He lay back and closed his eyes, reopening them presently and turning them upon the fire.

"A light!" he muttered, eagerly. "My last chance! Pull yourself--ah! they've got him!" He shuddered, then with a sudden lapse into partial consciousness, he went on: "There's no time to lose. They've got him! Don't you hear? They've got him! The shutter! I came on for help. One company will do it; but hurry them, for heaven's sake! Take your hand off me, you hound!"

Then followed a bewildering jumble of Hindustani and a language of which Forrester was ignorant. Taking a cup, Forrester hastened to the stream, filled it with water, and, returning, bathed the stranger's burning brow. The raving ceased. After a brief silence the weak voice again spoke coherently, though the speaker, as the words showed, did not realise his position.

"Don't wait for me. In the hills--four days; nights are better; you won't meet men by night. But march day and night; there's no time to lose, I tell you."

"How shall we find the way?" asked Forrester, in the quiet tone he had employed before.

"I'll show you," said the man, eagerly, trying again to rise. "No, I'm dead beat," he added, falling back. "I'll follow you up. I made a jotting; you can't miss them. What are you waiting for?"

"The paper. Where is it?"

The man wriggled within the blanket, and a look of agony distorted his face as he felt his helplessness.

Forrester quickly loosed the wrappings.

"Which pocket?" he asked.

But a stream of incoherent babbling poured from the exhausted man's lips. He lay passive as Forrester felt in his breast pocket and drew forth a small leather case. Opening it, Forrester discovered a folded paper lying loose. He spread it out, and saw what at first seemed to be nothing but a smudge. But when he held the paper nearer to the firelight, he distinguished a design. It was disappointing, puzzling. A pencil line slanted from the left-hand top corner to the middle of the sheet, then branched horizontally to the right. The pencil marks had rubbed and smudged in the man's pocket, but looking at them closely, Forrester made out a few words in addition to the line. At the angle he read "Camel's Hump," at the end on the right, "Monkey Face." There was nothing more.

CHAPTER II

A COUNCIL OF WAR

Forrester sat musing on what he had learnt from the sick man's broken phrases and the scrap of paper. It was little enough. The stranger's companion, Beresford, had been captured, presumably by natives, at a spot four days' march distant in the hills. His friend had come alone over at least a hundred miles of wild country to seek help. The pencil line traced his course; the names no doubt roughly described conspicuous natural features that would serve as landmarks on his return. But who were the captors? Where was the place of durance? What did he mean by "the shutter"? In what direction lay the point on the route called "Monkey Face"? Without answers to these questions it seemed to Forrester that nothing could be attempted on behalf of the prisoner.

A glance at the invalid showed that he was either asleep or fallen into a stupor. Forrester rose, and paced to and fro, half inclined to wake his friends before the time. The dismal hoot of an owl close at hand, several times repeated, jarred his nerves; by the natives the bird was suspected of possessing the power to scent out those about to die. Though scouting such superstitions, Forrester felt oppressed and uneasy, so that it was with real relief he heard, as he passed the tent, Mackenzie's voice rasp out from the interior:--

"De'il take the fowl!"

"You're awake, Mac?" he said, putting his head in.

"Who could sleep through yon soul-terrifying clamour?"

"Neither soft nor sweet," murmured Jackson. "How is he, Dick?"

"Asleep now, but he's been talking. As you're awake, get up, and I'll tell you."

Throwing rugs about them, they joined him, and all three returned to the fire. Forrester repeated the man's words, and showed them the paper.

"He's not daft, think ye, with his camels and monkeys?" said Mackenzie.

"He was sane enough when he drew this diagram," Forrester replied.

They examined it in turn.

"I say, here's a word you've missed," said Jackson, suddenly. "It's very faint, and badly smudged. I can hardly make it out, but it's 'Falls,' isn't it?"

They scrutinised the paper eagerly in the firelight.

"You're right," said Forrester. "That's his starting-point, by the look of it: some waterfall or other."

The stranger's pocket-book was lying on the ground where Forrester had placed it after removing the paper. Mackenzie picked it up.

"Don't you think we might?" he asked.

"It's the only way," said Jackson. "Find out who he is, and make inquiries about him as soon as we get back."

Mackenzie opened the case. From one of its pockets he drew forth a roll of rouble notes, from another a couple of letters addressed to Captain Redfern at Peshawar, and finally a small note-book.

"There's his name," said Forrester. "The note-book may help us."

He found, however, on opening this, that the leaves contained nothing but jottings of words and phrases in unfamiliar tongues, with their English equivalents. There was no clue to his destination or the object of his journey, no mention of his companion.

"We're not much forarder," said Forrester. "The only thing to do is to get home as quickly as possible to-morrow, and wire through to Sadiya or Calcutta. Somebody will know something about him."

They talked for a few minutes longer; then Forrester and Jackson returned to the tent, leaving Mackenzie to take his spell of watching.

The camp was astir early. While the coolies were packing up, and Hamid was preparing breakfast, Forrester sent Sher Jang to the village half a mile away to enlist carriers for the sick man. In an hour the shikari returned with four lithe, well-developed young Mishmis, whose only clothing was a loin-cloth of bark and strips of bamboo coiled about their arms and legs. The villagers' gratitude for the destruction of the man-eater disposed them to undertake any service for their deliverers, especially when that service was to be rewarded with pay.

After breakfast, a