Head-nurse ere long joined in the chase, saying all the rest didn’t understand cats.  But she soon lost patience and declaring that she had never been done by a dumb animal yet, started capture by force.  A circle was formed round the point where Down sat blinking in the sunlight, and shawls and veils were held up to make it complete.  Then step by step they advanced towards the cat, who, in truth, viewed the enclosing wall with polite indifference.  It was really rather a funny sight to see stout Head-nurse without her veil tip-toeing in line towards pussy and shrilling out her orders to the others to close in and be sure to leave no loopholes.  Step by step her voice became more and more triumphant, and it really seemed as if the cat must be caught this time, for Down sat sweetly purring until she was actually hidden from sight behind the high-held screening cloths.

“Now then! quick!” shrilled Head-nurse.  “Close in—­close——­”

But her order ended in a scream of fright, for there was pussy in one flying leap on her bare head, scrabbling up her scanty hair, and with another away up the hillside leaving nothing but claw-marks behind her!

Head-nurse wept with angry tears; but Foster-father, always sensible, said “Enough! cry on the camel if you will, but now is the time to slip away before the obstinate animal can return.”

There was wisdom in this; therefore Head-nurse composed herself comfortably in one pannier while Foster-mother, who was lighter, settled into the other with Baby Akbar.  So off they set at the dignified lollop which camels affect, and Head-nurse began to congratulate herself on having successfully evaded the “uncouth beasts.”

But there is no counting on cats.  If they are here one moment and gone the next, they are also gone one moment and here the next.  So, as the camel was passing under a thorn tree about half a mile out from camp, a great fluff of white hair sprang from the branches and landed right in Head-nurse’s broad lap.  And there was Mistress Down looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, and purring away like a kettle on the boil.

Head-nurse gave in altogether then.  “When a cat really makes up its mind,” she said with forced wisdom, “it is little use any one else making up theirs!”

So pussy sat in her lap, and after a while the warmth of the pretty creature and even the very roughness of the small three-cornered red tongue that licked her hand, as half-unconsciously she began to stroke the long soft fur, made her say suddenly: 

“Who knows but it is the Will of the Creator!  This mean-born thing may in the future be of use to the Light-of-the-World, the Observed-of-all-Observers,” etc., etc., etc.

And her words were to come true, for, as you will see by and bye, Down was of great use to her little master.  Nevertheless when, at the very next camping ground, a great big black golliwog of a dog with a gnawed end of rope still round his neck was seen calmly awaiting them at the door of the tent that was pitched for their reception, Head-nurse became tearful again and said that if Providence intended to send all the wild beasts of the field to look after Baby Akbar, there was no need for her; so she would give up her place.