“Well, we have this satisfaction:  when Pundita rules it will be under the protecting hand of England.  Now let us try to look at the cheerful side of the business.  Think of what that girl has gone through with scarcely a scratch!  Can’t you read something in that?  See how strong and self-reliant she has become under such misfortunes as would have driven mad any ordinary woman!  Can’t you see light in all this?  I tell you, there is good and evil working for and against us, and that Ahmed’s fakir will in the end prove stronger than your bally old guru.  When I am out of the Orient I laugh at such things, but I can’t laugh at them somehow when I’m in India.”

“Nor I.”

That night Kathlyn signified that she wished to go down to the beach beyond the harbor basin.  Bruce accompanied her.  Often he caught her staring out at the twinkling lights on board the Simla.  By and by they could hear the windlass creaking.  A volume of black smoke suddenly poured from the boat’s slanting funnel.  The ship was putting out to sea.

“Why do you risk your life for us?” she asked suddenly.

“Adventure is meat and drink to me, Miss Hare.”

The prefix sounded strange and unfamiliar in her ears.  Formality.  She had been wrong, then; only comradeship and the masculine sense of responsibility.  Her heart was like lead.

“It is very kind and brave of you, Mr. Bruce; but I will not have it.”

“Have what?” he asked, knowing full well what she meant.

“This going back with us.  Why should you risk your life for people who are almost strangers?”

“Strangers?” He laughed softly.  “Has it never occurred to you that the people we grow up with are never really our friends; that real friendship comes only with maturity of the mind?  Why, the best man friend I have in this world is a young chap I met but three years ago.  It is not the knowing of people that makes friendships.  It is the sharing of dangers, of bread, in the wilderness; of getting a glimpse of the soul which lies beneath the conventions of the social pact.  Would you call me a stranger?”

“Oh, no!” she cried swiftly.  “It is merely that I do not want you to risk your life any further for us.  Is there no way I can dissuade you?”

“None that I can think of.  I am going back with you.  That’s settled.  Now let us talk of something else.  Don’t you really want me to go?”

“Ah, that isn’t fair,” looking out to sea again and following the lights aboard the Simla.

It was mighty hard for him not to sweep her into his arms then and there.  But he would never be sure of her till she was free of this country, free of the sense of gratitude, free to weigh her sentiments carefully and unbiasedly.  He sat down abruptly on the wreck of an ancient hull embedded in the sand.  She sank down a little way from him.

He began to tell her some of his past exploits:  the Amazon, the Orinoco, the Andes, Tibet and China; of the strange flotsam and jetsam he had met in his travels.  But she sensed only the sound of his voice and the desire to reach out her hand and touch his.  Friendship!  Bread in the wilderness!