in curves, across the stone; but it was too dark--the light was too
fitful; the marks themselves were too faint from the constant
squatting of roadside wanderers.

Mahommed Gunga set the lamp down on the stone, and he and the attendant
took little sticks, sharp-pointed, with which they began to dig
hurriedly, scratching and scraping at what presently showed, even in
that rising and falling light, as Roman lettering. Soon Cunningham
himself began to lend a hand. He made out a date first, and he could
feel it with his fingers before his eyes deciphered it. Gradually,
letter by letter--word by word--he read it off, feeling a strange
new thrill run through him, as each line followed, like a voice from
the haunted past.


A.D. 1823. A.D.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF GENERAL ROBERT FRANCIS CUNNINGHAM
WHO DIED ON THIS SPOT
AETAT 81
FROM
WOUNDS INFLICTED BY A
TIGER

There was no sound audible except the purring of the lamp flame and the
heavy breathing of the three as Cunningham gazed down at the very
crudely carved, stained, often-desecrated slab below which lay the
first of the Anglo-Indian Cunninghams.

This man--these crumbled bones that lay under a forgotten piece of
rock--had made all of their share of history. They had begotten