Eager as I am to see your dear mother, I don't want to have to be lifted off my horse when I arrive there, almost speechless with fatigue." The next day they rode on to Kistnagherry, passing a small frontier fort without question.

They slept at the post house there, Dick and Surajah having removed their scarves and emblems of rank, as soon as they passed the frontier, in order to escape all inquiries.

They started next morning at daybreak, and arrived within sight of Tripataly at ten o'clock.
"Now, Father, I will gallop on," Dick said.

"I must break the news to Mother, before you arrive." "Certainly, Dick," his father, who had scarcely spoken since they started, replied.

"I have been feeling very anxious about it, all the morning; for though, as you tell me, she has never lost faith in my being alive, my return cannot but be a great shock to her." Dick rode on, and on arriving at the palace was met in the courtyard by the Rajah, who was on the point of going out on horseback.