Now I remember comrades— Old playmates on new seas— Whenas we traded orpiment Among the savages. Ten thousand leagues to southward, And thirty years removed— They knew not noble Valdez, But me they knew and loved.

Song of Diego Valdez.

Very early in the morning the white tents came down and disappeared as the Mavericks took a side-road to Umballa. It did not skirt the resting-place, and Kim, trudging beside a baggage-cart under fire of comments from soldiers’ wives, was not so confident as overnight. He discovered that he was closely watched—Father Victor on the one side, and Mr Bennett on the