On a native bed, in a corner of the one room, a man lay desperately ill; a European, with white hair and with a skin well bronzed by exposure to the tropics.

Ominous dark spots beneath the epidermis showed the nature of the disease.

He tossed restlessly as he lay, but did not raise his fevered head or look at my conductor.

"Well, any news of Ram Das ?" he asked at last, in a parched and feeble voice.
Parched and feeble as it was, I recognised it instantly.

The man on the bed was Sebastian--no other! "No news of Lam Das," the retired gentleman replied, with an unexpected display of womanly tenderness.