He gazed for a space at the calendar.

The day was the fifteenth of July.

Should he go back there, or should he give up the expedition?
He might never return.

India and the border countries! What a land, full of beauty and romance and terror and squalor, at once barbaric and civilized! He loved it and hated it, and sometimes feared it, he who had faced on foot many a wounded tiger.
He shrugged, reached into the desk for a box of Jaipur brass enamel and took from it a medal attached to a ribbon.

The golden disk was encrusted with uncut rubies and emeralds.
"Girls," he called.