264 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



jagged hole which, by his express order, had been left 

 unpatched. 



That, then, was the skin of the Manjrod man-eater ! 



"'Five khandis* was the prophecy, Alastair," he con- 

 cluded. " Five measures of twenty each. Over four and 

 a half have already been accounted for. Whether you 

 complete the total, or else hand the chest over to the native 

 agents whose address you have, is entirely your business ; 

 but in any case you have my most earnest thanks. And 

 now let us turn in. Good night, my dear boy. Good 

 night." 



The India of the late nineties was a very different 

 country to that of those bygone times when the " Qui- 

 hye," or old-fashioned " Anglo-Indian," possessed the land, 

 appearing even in the Presidency cities in his home- 

 made duck or drill and coloured "cummerbund"; and I 

 very soon realised what I had feared that for me to 

 travel with a copper -clasped btmniatis cash -chest was 

 quite another matter to what it had no doubt seemed 

 to old Colonel Mulligatawny. 



The " casket " was becoming an unmitigated nuisance ; 

 and that the very moment I had again set foot on the 

 shores of the old " Shiny." 



First of all there was the worry at the Bombay Customs, 

 through which Jhapoo, concealed for the occasion in a 

 matrix of old wearing apparel, had passed by the skin 

 of his teeth ; for the appearance of his habitation was 

 scarcely in keeping with that of the smart portmanteaus 

 and travelling-trunks which littered the platforms of the 

 Customs office. 



Then there was the affair of the native thief, over whose 

 insensible form I had tripped one evening in front of 

 the lock- picked chest on returning to my hotel, while the 

 sudden vision of Jhapoo squatting at home there in the 



