coming on he retreated to his lair and died there. The body was
sometimes dragged out of the hole and thrown on to the sand, or
allowed to rot where it lay.

The phrase "thrown on to the sand" caught my attention, and I
asked Gunga Dass whether this sort of thing was not likely to
breed a pestilence.

"That," said he with another of his wheezy chuckles, "you may see
for yourself subsequently. You will have much time to make
observations."

Whereat, to his great delight, I winced once more and hastily
continued the conversation: "And how do you live here from day
to day? What do you do?" The question elicited exactly the same
answer as before--coupled with the information that "this place is
like your European heaven; there is neither marrying nor giving in
marriage."

Gunga Dass had been educated at a Mission School, and, as he
himself admitted, had he only changed his religion "like a wise
man," might have avoided the living grave which was now his
portion. But as long as I was with him I fancy he was happy.

Here was a Sahib, a representative of the dominant race, helpless
as a child and completely at the mercy of his native neighbors. In
a deliberate lazy way he set himself to torture me as a schoolboy
would devote a rapturous half-hour to watching the agonies of an
impaled beetle, or as a ferret in a blind burrow might glue himself
comfortably to the neck of a rabbit. The burden of his