"I care not for the skin," Stanley said. "It would be of no use to me."

"Then, with your permission, I will take it off, and keep it as long as I live, as a remembrance of the narrowest escape that I ever had."

"Is your comrade dead?"

"Yes," the man replied. "The leopard struck him between the shoulders as you see; and the force of the blow, and the weight of the spring, must have killed him instantaneously."

"Then I will take his sword, gun, and cartridges."

So Stanley undid the sword belt, and buckled it round him; put the bandolier of cartridges over his shoulders; and took up the gun and reloaded it, while the man was at work skinning the leopard. This operation the man performed with great speed. It was evidently one that he had done before. As soon as the beast was flayed, he rolled up the skin and placed it on his shoulder.

"You are an officer, sir?" he asked.

"No; I am a fugitive."

While he had been watching the man, Stanley had debated over whether he should confide in him; and thought that, after the service he had rendered him, he could do so with safety.

"I am an Englishman--I was captured by Bandoola, at Ramoo, and sent a prisoner to Ava. I have escaped, and want to make my way down to Rangoon; but I heard that orders had been sent along the river to arrest me, and I do not, at present, know how to make my way down."

"Come with me," the man said. "I have friends in the forest, some distance from here. They will receive you gladly, when I tell them what you have done for me; and you will be safe until you choose to go. We are outlaws but, at present, we are masters of the forest.

The government has its hands full, and there is no fear of their disturbing us."

Stanley thought over the matter, for a minute or two. Doubtless it was a robber band that he was asked to join, but the offer seemed to promise safety, for a time.

"I agree," he said, "so that you do not ask me to take part in any deeds of violence."

"About that, you shall do as you like," the man said; "but I can tell you that we make good hauls, sometimes. Our difficulty is not to capture booty, but to dispose of it.

"Have you a turban? For that helmet of yours is out of place, in the woods. The rest of your dress has nothing peculiar about it, and would attract no attention."

"I have a turban. I have been, lately, in the dress of a peasant.

The cloth I wore lies fifty yards away; I dropped it as I ran. It will be useful to cover me at night, if for nothing else."

Stanley exchanged the helmet for the turban that he had before worn, and fetched the cloth.

"Will you bury your companion?" he said.

"It would be useless. He will sleep above ground, as well as below and, if we are to reach my comrades tonight, it is time for us to be moving."

They at once set out. After five hours' walking, they came upon the river Myitnge, the tributary that falls into the Irrawaddy at Ava.

It was some four hundred yards across. The Burman walked along its banks for a short distance, and then pulled from a clump of bushes a small boat, that was just capable of carrying two. He put it in the water. They took their seats, and paddled across to the other side; where he carefully concealed it, as before.

"That is our ferry boat," he said. "It is not often used, for our headquarters are in the great forest we shall presently come to; but it is as well when, occasionally, parties are sent out to hunt us, to have the means of crossing to the other side."

Another two hours' walking, through cultivated fields, brought them to the edge of the forest.

"Here you are as safe as if you were in Rangoon," the Burman said.

"In another hour we shall reach my comrades. As a rule, we change our headquarters frequently. At present there is no question of our being disturbed; so we have settled ourselves, for a time."

"Why were you and your comrade on the other side of the river?

"His village lies five miles beyond that forest," the man said. "At ordinary times, he dared not venture there; but he thought that, at present, most of the able men would be away, and so he could pay a visit to his friends. He asked me to accompany him and, as I had nothing better to do, I agreed to go. A convoy of traders, too strong to be attacked, had pa.s.sed down from the hill country the morning before we started. There was not much probability that anyone would come again, for a few days."

"They bring down rubies from there, do they not?"

"The mines are the property of the emperor," the man said, "and the gems are sent down, once every two months, under a strong guard; but for all that, many of the traders bring rubies down from there--of course, secretly. The men who work the mines often conceal stones that they come upon, and sell them for a small sum to the traders; besides, sometimes the peasants pick them up elsewhere--and these, too, make haste to sell them for anything that they can get. We do not care for them much, for it is a risky business going down to Ava to sell them; and the traders there, knowing that, at a word from them, we should be arrested and most likely executed, will give us next to nothing for them. We prefer silver and lead for money; and garments, arms, and set jewels.

"Each man takes his share of what is captured and, when we have enough, we go home to our villages. A pound of silver, or two or three pounds of lead, are generally quite enough to buy the goodwill of the head man of the village. We give out that we have been working on the river, or in Ava, since we left; and everyone knows better than to ask questions."

In another hour, they reached the encampment. It was now dusk, and some five-and-twenty men were sitting round a great fire. A number of leafy arbours had been constructed in a circle beyond them.

"What, returned so soon!" one of the men said, as Stanley's guide came near enough for the firelight to fall on his face; "but where is Ranji, and whom have you brought here--a new recruit?"

"Not exactly, Parnik, but one to whom I have promised shelter, for a while. Ranji is dead. I should have been dead, too, and eaten; had it not been for my comrade, here. Here is the skin of the beast who slew Ranji and, when I tell you that the leopard stood with one paw on me, you may guess that my escape was a narrow one."

"The brute was a large one," one of the other men said, as Meinik--for such was the name of Stanley's companion--unrolled and held the skin up. "I see it had a bullet between the eyes, and another just behind the ear; and there is a knife cut behind the shoulder. It must have been hot work, when it came to knives, with a beast of that size."

"Give us some food, and cocoa; we have eaten nothing today, and have walked far. When we have fed, I will tell you my story."

The Burman's recital of the adventure with the leopard excited great applause, and admiration, from his comrades.

"'Tis wonderful," one said, "not so much that our new comrade should have killed the leopard, though that was a great feat; but that, armed only with a knife, he should attack a beast like this, to save the life of a stranger. Truly I never heard of such a thing. Has he all his senses?"

Meinik nodded. He had received permission from Stanley to say who he was. Stanley had consented with some reluctance, but the man a.s.sured him that he could trust his companions, as well as himself; and that it was much better to tell the truth, as it would soon be seen that his features differed altogether from their own and that, therefore, he was some strange person in disguise.

"He is in his senses," he said, "but he does not see things as we do. He is one of those English barbarians who have taken Rangoon, and against whom our armies are marching. He was captured at Ramoo; and sent by Bandoola, as a prisoner, to Ava. He has made his escape and will, in a short time, go down the river; but at present the search is too hot for him. So you see that he is, like ourselves, a fugitive."

"What is his age?" one of the men asked, after a silence, during which they all gazed at the newcomer.

"He is but a lad, being as he tells me between sixteen and seventeen; but you see his skin is stained, and his face marked, so as to give him the appearance of age."

"If the men of his race are as brave as he is, Meinik, our troops will truly have harder work than they think to drive them into the sea. Does he speak our tongue?"

"Yes," Stanley answered for himself. "I have been more than two years in the province of Chittagong, and learned it from one who was in our service."

"And would many of your people risk their lives in the way you did, for a stranger?"

"Certainly. Many men constantly run risks as great to save others."

"One life is all a man has," the Burman said. "Why should he give it for a stranger?"

"I don't think that we stop to think of that," Stanley said. "It seems to us natural that if we see another in danger of his life, we should try to save it; whether it is a man or woman, whether it be from fire or from any other fate."

"You must be a strange people," the Burman said gravely, "and I should scarce have credited it, had I not heard that you had done it, yourself. But it is wonderful; and you, too, a lad who has not yet come to his full strength.

"We should be glad to have such a man for our comrade, my friends.

Whether he be Burman or English matters little. He has risked his life for one of us; and he is our brother as long as he likes to stay with us."