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 Kela Bai : 
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl
 
 Kela Bai 
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyll 
 
 By 
 
 Charles Johnston 
 
 Bengal Civil Service, Retired 
 
 Doubleday & McClure Co. 
 New York 1900
 
 COPYBIGHT, 1900, BY 
 
 DOUBLEDAY & McCLTJRE CO.
 
 pft 
 
 GENTLE EEADEE: 
 
 The Lady whose fate 
 you will follow, being but a Pagan and 
 of barbarous speech, may not solicit your 
 favor in her proper person. Yet through 
 the lips of the Author she would proffer one 
 request : that you pronounce her name as 
 though it were written Kay-la Bah-ee, not 
 otherwise ; the first word / cannot call it 
 Christian name being rhymed to Sailor 
 as the English speak it, with a clipping of 
 the end, while the second part ends some- 
 thing like a Sigh. Yet she would not have 
 you sigh, nor I neither, but rather to find 
 pleasure and delight. For, wide apart in 
 other things, the Lady and the Author are 
 yet alike in this: that we depend for our 
 well-being on the general good-will. Gain- 
 ing but this, we your petitioners will ever 
 
 pray. 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 Kela Bai : An Anglo-Indian 
 Idyl 
 
 " All Narad and the Seven Sages taught, 
 Woman by nature knows." 
 
 It was the time of divine weather after 
 the rains. The hot season had burned 
 itself away. The monsoon had burst in 
 sweat-drops at the end of June. Then 
 came four steaming months, when the air 
 was white with the hiss and the swish and 
 the swirl of the rains. The swollen Ganges 
 overtopped her banks, and foamed among 
 the roots of the yellow babul-bushes. Por- 
 poises turned somersaults in the brown 
 eddies. The rain-birds wailed in every 
 dripping grove. 
 
 1
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 But now the rains were over. The white 
 fever-mists were gone. The sky was blue 
 again : pale turquoise overhead, and pearly 
 white around the sunrise. There was a 
 keen smell in the air, the acrid smoke of 
 last night's cooking wreathed among the 
 morning mists. The bazaar was just be- 
 ginning to stir. Over the dun thatch of 
 the houses climbed melons with broad 
 green leaves. The dew lay heavy on their 
 yellow trumpet-flowers, like wet seed 
 pearls. The stems of the date-palms were 
 red in the sunrise. They threw ferny 
 shadows on the reddened matting of the 
 walls. The broad leaves of the bananas, 
 soft and pale green, rowed gently in the 
 breeze. 
 
 Kela Bai's parrot Tota swung his perch 
 to and fro in the upper veranda of her 
 house. He was green, with a red blaze on 
 his forehead. He shrieked at the kites 
 and the eagles swooping low along the 
 dusty street, and then broke into a long 
 chuckle. Tota was always first awake. 
 A couch creaked inside. A shutter-door 
 2
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 opened on the veranda, and a bare brown 
 arm threw a half-banana deftly at Tota, 
 which Tota caught cleverly in one claw. 
 The arm disappeared, and drowsy sounds 
 of stretching and yawning drifted through 
 the window. Tota swung round his perch, 
 and began to eat the banana, hanging head 
 downwards by one claw. When the ban- 
 ana was finished, Tota set the perch once 
 more a-swinging. 
 
 " Go to Gehenna, son of a swine, son of 
 a swine, son of a swine! " he shrilled, with 
 cheerful iteration, speaking to no one in 
 particular. Doors and shutters began to 
 open, as the bazaar came awake; and the 
 blush died out of the sunshine. In the 
 upper room that opened on the veranda, 
 Kela Bai sat on the edge of her couch, 
 rubbing the dreams out of her eyes. Then 
 she threw her arms above her head, and 
 stretched herself long and deliciously. 
 Then she yawned again. She was lithe 
 and supple, with a glossy, light-brown 
 skin, and big dark eyes. Then she be- 
 gan to smile. She remembered that she 
 3
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 had been dreaming it was her birthday. 
 She often dreamed this, and always celeb- 
 rated it by holding a festival, and receiv- 
 ing presents. She had friends everywhere : 
 Bengali landowners from the country 
 round; large-eyed Madrassis from the 
 south; pink-turbaned up-countrymen, and 
 giants from beyond the hills. For she 
 kept open house. 
 
 Her friends called her Kela Bai Sister 
 Banana because she was sweet and ac- 
 cessible, as Ashutosh Babu, a young Brah- 
 man friend of hers, wittily said; and they 
 always responded liberally on her birth- 
 days. Therefore she wore the prettiest 
 Saris of fine white muslin, with edges of 
 red like a Eoman senator; lived in a two- 
 story house of brick, and had a great vari- 
 ety of personal ornaments. 
 
 Her two tire-women were still snoring. 
 They were wrinkled and withered and grey, 
 for they had belonged to a past generation. 
 Kela Bai slipped over to the couch of Moti 
 Bibi, the greyest of them, turned back the 
 Kashmir shawl that covered her, and bent 
 4
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 her head over the wrinkled arm, as though 
 she would kiss it. But she really bit it 
 gently with her shining teeth, and Moti 
 Bibi awoke with a howl, rubbing her 
 frightened eyes. Kela Bai was laughing 
 at her. 
 
 " Monkey's sister! " cried Moti Bibi an- 
 grily, rubbing her arm. Then she began 
 to laugh, catching the infection from Kela 
 Bai. Then the two went and upset Mani 
 Bewa's couch, and there was a rustle and 
 a scrimmage on the floor, and Kela Bai 
 escaped down-stairs, catching up a fresh 
 Sari as she ran. The two tire-women fol- 
 lowed her more slowly, grumbling and 
 laughing; and all three joined the chat- 
 tering women who were straggling towards 
 the lotus-pond at the end of the street. 
 Presently they were all in the warm, green- 
 ish water, dipping and splashing, with 
 shrill chatter and many jests, women and 
 girls, boys and men, all bathing together. 
 Then Kela Bai came out to the bank, to 
 change her wet garment. 
 
 " Did you hear about Moti Bibi and the 
 5
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 barber?" asked one woman, speaking to 
 the company in general. 
 
 " The jackals were all through the 
 bazaar last night," said another. 
 
 "Yes, looking for Behari Babu's girl- 
 baby. The last wedding-feast ruined 
 him," laughed a third. 
 
 " The Sub-Inspector Babu is going to 
 get married again." 
 
 "Yes, the daughter of the Paglapore 
 zemindar this time." 
 
 " That will make number nine." 
 
 " Krishna married more than nine milk- 
 maids, then why not the Sub-Inspector 
 Babu?" 
 
 A general burst of laughter greeted this. 
 They disliked the Sub-Inspector. 
 
 " Ashutosh Babu says the Collector Sa- 
 hib is coming." 
 
 Everybody was interested now. 
 
 " Yes, they are pitching his tents in the 
 mango-grove.'' 5 
 
 "Tents? How many?" 
 
 "Two big white tents, like Kela Bai's 
 house, and a little one for the servants." 
 6
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 " Kela Bai, why do you not go and pay 
 him a visit?" 
 
 Kela Bai smiled, showing all her teeth, 
 and everybody laughed. The sun and the 
 wind had dried her glossy skin, and she 
 began to change her Sari, wrapping the 
 dry one round her, as she unwrapped the 
 other, with a series of jerks and wriggles, 
 like a serpent sloughing its skin. She came 
 forth resplendent in fresh red and white, 
 having made a complete renewal of her 
 apparel, there in the open eye of day, so 
 skilfully that she had not showed more 
 than one brown shoulder. Mani Bewa 
 picked up the wet Sari, after changing her 
 own; while Moti Bibi waded half across 
 the tank, beyond the bathers, and filled 
 her big brass jar with water. The gossip- 
 ing crowd began to disperse, and Kela Bai 
 tripped back over the velvet dust. Tota 
 saw her coming. 
 
 " Kela Bai, give me a rupee ! " he cried. 
 " Go to Gehenna, monkey's wife! " 
 
 Kela Bai laughed a little. She was not 
 the least offended. She knew it was only 
 7
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 his friendliness. Sunning up the narrow 
 staircase, she came out on the veranda, 
 and made a feint of boxing Tota's ears. 
 Then she gave him a piece of sugar-cane. 
 Tota ducked under his perch, snapped at 
 her finger, and then began to crunch the 
 sugar-cane, while Kela Bai rubbed his 
 green and scarlet head. They were the 
 best of friends, and understood each other 
 perfectly. Her circle said Tota was her 
 son, with a green-winged Musician of 
 Paradise for his father. 
 
 " Come in and eat your rice, feather- 
 headed grasshopper!" Moti Bibi's shrill 
 voice cried, within the room. The three 
 were soon seated on the floor beside their 
 leaf-plates of boiled rice, with little heaps 
 of curried vegetables on a brass plate in the 
 middle. They threw the rice down their 
 throats, never missing a grain. Their 
 sordid, good-natured gossip ran on pos- 
 sible visitors and presents. Tota shrieked 
 an accompaniment from the veranda. 
 
 " About time for Shah Jehan to come 
 back," said Moti Bibi. 
 8
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 " Go to Paradise, monkey's wife! " cried 
 Tota. 
 
 "Always good for twenty rupees," said 
 Mani Bewa. 
 
 " Turki hound ! Son of a swine ! " from 
 the veranda. 
 
 "Must tell Ram Lai to keep away," 
 said Kela Bai, smiling, and balancing 
 a little handful of rice between her fin- 
 gers. 
 
 " Monkey's wife! Give me a rupee! " 
 
 And so it went on. Kela Bai found 
 Tota rather soothing. When she had fin- 
 ished her rice, she held her fingers daintily 
 over a basin of brass, scrubbed with sand 
 till it was like the sun, and Mani Bewa 
 poured water over her hands from the 
 brass jar. Moti Bibi came behind, and 
 jogged her elbow, and the water spirted 
 up Kela Bai's arm. There was a fight 
 between the two old women, which Kela 
 Bai ended by knocking their heads to- 
 gether, and then Moti Bibi began to pre- 
 pare her mistress's pipe. 
 
 It was a cocoanut shell on a silver tri- 
 9
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 pod, with a silver stem rising above it like 
 a lily, and a long, flexible tube. Moti Bibi 
 put fresh water in the cocoanut shell, filled 
 the lily-top with black tobacco, and touched 
 it with an ember, while Kela Bai pulled 
 gently at the tube, still sitting on the 
 matted floor. She smoked rather to be 
 sociable than because she liked it. There 
 were evening-hours when the whole bazaar 
 throbbed with the gurgle of hookahs, and 
 the pungent smoke rose like incense 
 through the twilight, while the sacred 
 conches blared from the temples, like the 
 deep lowing of kine, and the cattle came 
 home, shuffling through the dust. Smok- 
 ing was then almost a burnt-offering, and 
 Kela Bai joined with the rest. In the 
 morning, she smoked merely from idle- 
 ness. It was less trouble than any other 
 form of mischief. The smoke gurgled 
 and bubbled through the water, and a 
 blue wreath rose above the bowl, like a 
 bird hovering over a flower. Kela Bai 
 blew seven smoke-rings, slowly counting 
 them aloud, then pushed the hookah 
 10
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 away, and proceeded to the serious matter 
 of her toilet. 
 
 Her raven-black locks were coiled in the 
 Greek fashion. She had her tresses combed 
 out, and made shiny with fresh cocoanut 
 oil. Then she began to stick all sorts of 
 filigree things into her hair, as it was 
 coiled up again. An admiring silversmith 
 brought them to her on her birthdays. 
 She set them in jauntily, and smiled to 
 herself in the looking-glass. That look- 
 ing-glass was the one really ugly thing in 
 the room, and her greatest treasure. It 
 had a yellow tint, and an embossed tin 
 frame, and came from the Belati shop 
 at the corner the emporium of goods 
 " from over seas " : cheap glass lamps, ugly 
 moulded tumblers, grass-green dishes, 
 plates with purple flowers. Kela Bai 
 sometimes winked at herself in the look- 
 ing-glass. She was the only person in the 
 village who possessed this accomplishment, 
 and would never tell who had taught her. 
 
 She finished the adornment of her hair 
 by drawing a red line down the parting, 
 11
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 towards her forehead, and then set to work 
 on her eyebrows. She combed a furrow 
 along them, drew a black line of collyrium 
 down the middle of the furrow, and then 
 combed the furrow back again. Then she 
 joined the brows together, as ibex-horns 
 are joined to make a bow, and finished the 
 suggestion by lengthening the outer ends, 
 with a turned-up curve. She was now 
 ready " to shoot swift arrows from Cupid's 
 bow," as Kalidasa says. Then she drew a 
 light line along each lower lid, where 
 the lashes were set in; then a heavier line, 
 where the lid joined the cheek. 
 
 " If you desire happiness, never put col- 
 lyrium on your upper lids," was one of 
 her sayings. All this she did every day, 
 and every day enjoyed it. 
 
 Then she took a sharp little knife, and 
 began on her hands, finishing up her nails 
 with a touch of pink henna, and then 
 beautified her toe-nails in the same way. 
 She had very pretty feet, with pink soles 
 and heels, and she had never had a slipper 
 on in her life. Yes, she had once, though. 
 12
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 It was many sizes too big for her, was very 
 much turned up at the toe, and embroid- 
 ered with gold thread and coloured silk, 
 and belonged to a bearded giant from 
 Cabul. When she slipped her bare foot 
 into it, he grew very angry, and would 
 never put it on again. She had it still, 
 as a trophy, and always laughed to herself 
 when she looked at it. But it had cost 
 her the Cabuli's friendship. 
 
 Her hands were daintily shaped, but her 
 wrists, like her ankles, were rather thick, 
 perhaps only plump. She had a very 
 pretty trick of opening her arms in won- 
 der, spreading out her hands with the fin- 
 gers very much bent back, and sticking 
 forward her pink palms like table-lands. 
 She knew that gesture was very becoming. 
 Then a little red on her lips that should 
 have come earlier, but she had forgotten 
 it and she turned to her jewel-box. 
 
 First the thin shells that fitted round 
 her ears; then an anxious debate between 
 two nose-ornaments for it was her birth- 
 day, and she must look her very best. She 
 13
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 decided in favour of the smaller, with two 
 turquoises, which Shah Jehan had given 
 her. The turquoises were rather greener 
 than they should be, but then the giver 
 might arrive, and he would be pleased to 
 see her wearing it. Then rings three 
 or four to every finger her only touch of 
 ostentation; then bracelets, armlets, ban- 
 gles, of gold and silver, lacquer and glass; 
 to-day she chose the gold only. Then she 
 finished up with toe-rings and anklets that 
 tinkled as she walked, and surveying her- 
 self again in the glass, with a long look of 
 admiration, she winked slowly and seri- 
 ously at her own image, which winked 
 slowly and seriously back again. A final 
 touch to her Sari, a twitch here, a twist 
 there, a little tug, then a wriggle, till it 
 sat to perfection, and she sank back happy 
 on her couch, calling to Moti Bibi to give 
 her the mouthpiece of the hookah. 
 
 Simple as a Sari is skirt and bodice and 
 all the rest in one, without a stitch of sew- 
 ing there are a hundred different degrees 
 of grace in wearing it. Kela Bai was in 
 14
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 the nineties. She took six turns round 
 the waist, to make the skirt, with a hitch 
 behind, to keep it firm; then she brought 
 the loose end over her left shoulder from 
 behind, leaving the right arm bare, and 
 tucking the end in at her waist. 
 
 "Kela Bai," said Moti Bibi, looking 
 out of the corner of her eye at her mis- 
 tress, who was once more blowing smoke- 
 rings, and counting them in a low, happy 
 voice, " they say in the bazaar that the half- 
 white woman Padma Bai is coming to buy 
 a house here." 
 
 Kela Bai sat up instantly, drawing the 
 mouthpiece from her lips. Her eyes 
 flashed, and there was a frowning furrow 
 between her brows. 
 
 "If Padma Bai comes to my village," 
 she cried in a voice full of suppressed ex- 
 citement, " I'll spoil her beauty for her." 
 Then she began to laugh. " But I think, 
 if she comes, she will die of starvation." 
 
 " Kela Bai," said Mani Bewa, " the Sub- 
 Inspector Babu says he is coming to pay 
 you a visit. What will you do ? " 
 15
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 " Stab him as he comes into the room," 
 cried Kela Bai, in a passion, " or tie a 
 rope across the stair, and let him break 
 his neck! " 
 
 Mani Bewa looked at Moti Bibi, and 
 smiled a wrinkled smile. Moti Bibi looked 
 at Mani Bewa, and smiled back at her. It 
 was part of a game they played on Kela 
 Bai. She tyrannized over them, and they 
 revenged themselves by working her into 
 a passion. She was looking towards the 
 doorway, with flaming eyes, as if expect- 
 ing her rival or her enemy, when she heard 
 a faint chuckle from Mani Bewa, and knew 
 that they had been making fun of her 
 again. She winced almost imperceptibly, 
 but showed no sign. Then she bent over 
 her jewel-box, and pretended to seek for 
 something, gradually letting a look of 
 anxiety come into her eyes. 
 
 "My big emerald is lost!" she cried 
 suddenly, in a tone of despair, looking 
 round sharply at the two old women. 
 " Do you know anything about it, Mani 
 Bewa? do you, Moti Bibi?" Then 
 16
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 her face grew dark with well-feigned 
 anger. 
 
 " It was here last night," she went on; 
 " no one has been here but you two. I will 
 go to the Collector Sahib, and make com- 
 plaint! We shall see if I am to be robbed 
 in my own house! " And the little tyrant 
 glared down at her two thoroughly fright- 
 ened slaves. They grew greyer and more 
 wrinkled with real fear, and falling at 
 her feet, each confessed to the theft, 
 only begging for mercy, and praying 
 her not to make complaint, and to spare 
 their aged misery. When she had pun- 
 ished them enough, Kela Bai burst out 
 laughing. 
 
 " So you both stole it as a present for 
 Padma Bai or the Sub-Inspector, I sup- 
 pose and that is why it is still safe in 
 the box. You will certainly go to Ge- 
 henna, sisters of monkeys! " 
 
 Tota had been dreaming on his perch, 
 and wandering in spirit through the splen- 
 did woods of parrot-land. The voices wak- 
 ened him, and he began once more: 
 17
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 "Go to Gehenna, monkey's wife! Go 
 to Gehenna, monkey's wife! " 
 
 Kela Bai was admiring herself in the 
 glass. 
 
 " Kela Bai-i-i, you are as sweet as a 
 mango! " she said to her image, and be- 
 gan to dance softly before it. She danced 
 the serpent-curve, the peacock-step, the 
 wave of Ganga, and the swaying plantain, 
 all with much play of eyes and neck and 
 wrists and waist, and with endless pretty 
 tinklings of her bangles. Then she began 
 a fragment of song, but broke off immedi- 
 ately, and called from the open window: 
 
 " Hey, boy, son of a wildcat, bring round 
 my bullock-carriage! Quick, you door- 
 keeper of Gehenna! " 
 
 Tota caught up the phrase. 
 
 " Quick, you door-keeper, go to Ge- 
 henna! " 
 
 The bullock-cart was soon creaking round 
 from the courtyard. It was lacquered red, 
 with yellow pictures of many-armed gods; 
 and drawn by two pensive little white oxen 
 with gilded horns, bright with red bunches 
 18
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 of Ashoka flowers. The boy was perched 
 up in front at the tails of the oxen; he 
 kept a tail in each hand, to twist, and to 
 steer by. He was almost black, with big 
 hands and feet, and his costume consisted 
 of two ragged pieces of cotton, one round 
 his middle, the other round his head. He 
 had a wonderfully sweet smile, and a won- 
 derfully profane vocabulary, learned in 
 part from Tota, and in part from the two 
 grey old women, when they had too much 
 rice wine, and fell to telling ancient his- 
 tories. The boy's voice went shrilling up 
 at the end of a sentence, like a kite's. 
 
 Kela Bai and her shadows were down 
 by this, armed with formidable musical 
 instruments. That was for the birthday 
 party. Kela Bai climbed into the bullock- 
 cart, and seated herself well to the front. 
 She clashed her cymbals once or twice, to 
 see that they were in tune, and then drew 
 the edge of one along the other, like a wet 
 finger on a wine-glass, and held them up 
 behind her driver's head, as the keen note 
 rung out from the brass. 
 19
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 "Holy Krishna!" cried the boy, star- 
 tled, and Kela Bai printed him on the 
 back with one of the cymbals, leaving a 
 ring on his black skin. Moti Bibi was 
 curling down, in the back corner, nursing 
 a crook-backed fiddle, which would pres- 
 ently grumble forth strange melodies. 
 Mani Bewa incautiously tried to scramble 
 in over the back of the cart, with the re- 
 sult that it nearly upset and lifted the lit- 
 tle bullocks off their feet. Kela Bai 
 screamed, and clubbed Mani Bewa on the 
 head with a cymbal. The old creature 
 presently climbed in over the wheel, a 
 long-necked zither stretching over her 
 shoulder. The strings made a rustling 
 undersong, like the whisper of leaves. 
 Kela Bai sang a line or two of her newest 
 ballad, and then started forth to look for 
 an audience. 
 
 The time for the procession was well 
 chosen. The government clerks were 
 straggling towards their office, clothed in 
 white, with shoes, but stockingless, and 
 cackling like a string of wild geese. They 
 20
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 had white umbrellas and yellow faces. 
 They noticed Kela Bai's equipage in the 
 distance, and all began to shout and wave 
 their umbrellas. 
 
 The old men loafing about in the open 
 shops, or on the doorsteps wizened an- 
 cients, whose grey hair had not brought 
 grace drew their dry lips from the bub- 
 bling hookahs, and chuckled with an air 
 of unfathomed depravity. 
 
 Shabby old women from outlying vil- 
 lages, with baskets of queer purple and 
 scarlet and yellow vegetables, scowled or 
 grinned at the little bullock-cart, as the 
 humour took them; and the children, in 
 their naked innocence, trotted and stag- 
 gered to meet her. The pariah dogs snuf- 
 fled and snarled, with their noses in the 
 dust. As the cart came up, the small boy, 
 very excited, was twisting the tails of the 
 bullocks to make them run, and shrieking 
 genealogies at them. The clerkly Babus 
 gathered round Kela Bai in a mob, and 
 stopped her progress. It was: 
 
 "Ho, Kela Bai!" and "Hey, Kela 
 21
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 Bail" and "Kela Bai, oh!" as they all 
 talked at once, as loud as they could. Then 
 jests began to detach themselves from the 
 general chatter, and the old grizzled men 
 and women began to gather round and 
 grin. 
 
 " Kela Bai, when is Ishak Khan coming 
 back from Cabul?" "Kela Bai, what 
 did landowner Keshub give you for your 
 last birthday?" "Kela Bai, did you in- 
 herit that nose-ring from your father?" 
 This raised a general laugh. " Kela Bai, 
 you should cut your hair till Shah Jehan 
 comes back! " "Kela Bai, when is Tota's 
 brother coming ? " " Kela Bai, sing us a 
 song ! " " Yes, Kela Bai, a song, a song ! " 
 The birthday was a palpable success. She 
 wanted above all things to be asked to sing. 
 A strange adventure had befallen her no 
 less than a white visitor. She had been 
 out, and her friends had harshly entreated 
 him, and sent him away sorrowing. But 
 Kela Bai was touched by the romance 
 of it. So she turned the tale into 
 verse :
 
 , An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 "Ke-e-e-la Bai was young and fair ! 
 E-e-e-e Kela Bai-i-i ! " . . . 
 
 Her two slaves joined in the chorus, 
 which ended in a shrill note, sung through 
 the nose. They plied the crook-backed 
 fiddle and the long-necked zither vigor- 
 ously, while she herself clashed the cym- 
 bals. There was a moment's pause, broken 
 by gurgling sounds the old men had re- 
 turned to their hookahs. Then Kela Bai 
 lifted up her voice once more : 
 
 " Kela Bai was like the sun 
 Oh, won't you come along and take a walk with 
 
 me? 
 
 Kela Bai was bright as the moon 
 E-e-e-e Kela Bai-i-i 1 "... 
 
 Chorus, cymbals, and hookahs as before. 
 She went on to sing of how Kela Bai was 
 like the rainbow, the stars, the blossom of 
 the red coral-tree, the mango in spring- 
 time, the rose-lotus, the white egret, the 
 palm-tree; with the same long-drawn, lan- 
 guorous chorus after each line. Her audi- 
 ence was becoming restive under this
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 broadside of her praises, so she hurried on 
 to the hero, leaving out many verses: 
 
 " Fierce as a lion, strong as a boar ! 
 E-e-e-e the white man came ! . . . 
 White as camphor, eyes like jet, 
 Won't you come along and take a walk with me ? 
 
 " Snow-pith helmet, scarlet shoes, 
 E-e-e-e the white man came ! . . . 
 Rich and rare was his coat of silk, 
 Won't you come along and take a walk with me ? 
 
 " Smitten was his heart by the thought of me, 
 E-e-e-e by the thought of me ! . . . 
 Stricken as the palm by the elephant, 
 Won't you come along and take a walk with 
 me?" . . . 
 
 By this time the audience no longer 
 were pretending to listen. They were dis- 
 cussing Kela Bai's apparel, its wearer, her 
 skill in cosmetics, and her natural parts, 
 with admirable candour ; and there was 
 much cackling laughter from the old men, 
 as if they were looking back on many 
 memories. 
 
 When the young men had appraised 
 34
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 her from the ankles to the elbows, with 
 much laughter and wit, loudly applauding 
 this and the other gift, one of them re- 
 marked : 
 
 " Kela Bai has feathers as fine as a pea- 
 cock's." 
 
 Another, on the edge of the crowd, 
 mimicked him: 
 
 " Kela Bai has a voice as fine as a pea- 
 cock's, too." And they all laughed shrilly 
 and long. Kela Bai was furious. She 
 had come out full of happiness, ready to 
 delight them all with her songs, and here 
 they were mocking her, and saying un- 
 kind things about her voice and all the 
 world was laughing at her, maliciously and 
 unkindly. That was one thing she could 
 not bear, and her fierce temper began to 
 rise, her brows to draw together, and her 
 eyes to glow. 
 
 " The peacock has sung, we may expect 
 a thunderstorm," said the same mocking 
 voice, and the crowd applauded to the 
 echo. Kela Bai broke out furiously, rail- 
 ing and threatening her tormentors. 
 85
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 She began to curse them methodically, 
 attributing their parentage to the beasts 
 that perish, calling down all manner of 
 sickness upon them, and summoning the 
 gods to visit them with afflictions, loss of 
 fame, fortune, prosperity, and peace. But 
 they only laughed the more. 
 
 " The lady in red has become a doctor 
 of morals!" said her enemy, quoting the 
 old Indian proverb, and everyone shrieked 
 with delight. Kela Bai grew red un- 
 der her gold-brown skin, and shook her 
 fist in their faces, gnashing her teeth in 
 powerless wrath. When she raised her 
 brown fist, plump and soft as a baby's, the 
 Babus lifted their umbrellas and pointed 
 them at her, bayonet-wise, in derisive self- 
 protection. She was fast losing the last 
 vestige of control, in a wild whirlwind of 
 passion, when three Babus who were be- 
 hind her pushed at the back of the little 
 bullock-cart, and set it in motion. Others 
 in front prodded the little white bullocks 
 in their tender ribs with their umbrellas, 
 and the cavalcade started at a brisk trot. 
 26
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 The foremost of her tormentors put the 
 crown on the insult by running alongside, 
 grasping her by the wrists, and banging 
 together the cymbals she held in her 
 hands, at the same time repeating in a 
 shrill falsetto: 
 
 " E-e-e-e Kela Bai, 
 
 Won't you coine along and take a walk with 
 me?" . . . 
 
 The very words of her own song. The 
 crowd laughed till the tears came, and 
 Kela Bai was speechless with vexation. 
 Moti Bibi released her by bending forward 
 and biting his elbow, till he shrieked and 
 let go, and the crowd turned and laughed 
 at him. Moti Bibi got that inspiration 
 from her own first experience of the morn- 
 ing. Kela Bai was sobbing now, with 
 sheer bitterness of heart, as the bullocks 
 slowed down, and fell back into their or- 
 dinary shuffle. And she would have 
 sobbed herself into a good temper soon, 
 but for a new piece of malice from her 
 enemies. 
 
 27
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 The street curved like a bow. Kela 
 Bai's bullock-cart was disappearing round 
 the curve. Said one of the Babus: 
 
 "Let us go ahead of her, and bring the 
 Sub-Inspector! She will be glad to see 
 him!" 
 
 "He will dry her tears for her," cried 
 another, and they carried the proposal by 
 acclamation. They cut across the cord of 
 the bow, knocked at the Sub-Inspector's 
 house, and carried him along with them 
 to the corner. 
 
 Kela Bai's little cart was just appear- 
 ing. Mani Bewa and Moti Bibi had sob- 
 bed aloud in sympathetic wrath, and their 
 devotion had soothed her. It would have 
 been sunshine in her heart in a min- 
 ute if she had been left alone. But the 
 crowd were only beginning to enjoy the 
 sport of baiting her. They gathered in 
 a group across the road, with their backs 
 to her advancing cart, and made as if they 
 were talking earnestly. The boy saw 
 them, and tried to turn the cart. Kela 
 Bai, sitting behind him, did not see them, 
 28
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 and fiercely ordered him to drive on she 
 wanted to escape from the scene of her 
 woes. So the bullock-cart drifted up to 
 the line of backs and then stopped. The 
 Babus had told the Sub-Inspector that a 
 woman, drunk and disorderly, was driving 
 down the bazaar. They had not mentioned 
 her name, from design. For there was a 
 feud between Kela Bai and Behari Babu, 
 the Sub-Inspector. He had claimed cer- 
 tain tithes and privileges, according to im- 
 memorial custom, which she had indig- 
 nantly refused. She hated him for his air 
 of superior beauty. So when the Sub-In- 
 spector, dragged out rudely from his house 
 to arrest a supposed drunken woman, and 
 Kela Bai, sobbing with mortified vanity, 
 recognized each other, they were both in 
 a mood to make trouble, and the trouble 
 quickly came. 
 
 This was just the chance the Sub-In- 
 spector had been waiting for, to avenge 
 the injury of his slighted grace. He was 
 coldly vindictive, while she was hot with 
 wrath. He had the advantage, for he 
 29
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 could depend on the witnesses to tell the 
 tale his way. 
 
 " Drive on! " cried Kela Bai. " Make 
 way for my bullocks to pass! " 
 
 "What, you low-caste woman?" said 
 the Sub-Inspector in a cold voice. " What 
 talk is this ? A Brahman make way for a 
 bullock! You must be drunk to talk like 
 this, insolent she-goat! " 
 
 "Drive on!" cried Kela Bai again. 
 "Drive over them!" as if the two poor 
 little bullocks could bear down the crowd 
 like mailed elephants. 
 
 " Well, pariah woman, why are you dis- 
 turbing the street ? " 
 
 She did not answer, for though she had 
 resisted successfully so far, she knew that 
 there were endless resources of tyranny, 
 extortion, and cruelty in his official pos- 
 ition, and that he was the man to use them 
 to the utmost. Her two women were cold 
 with fear. They had stopped sobbing, and 
 hardly drew breath. Kela Bai herself was 
 making desperate efforts to restrain her- 
 self. The matter was as serious as poss- 
 80
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 ible for her now. The Sub-Inspector got 
 in a third shot: 
 
 " You ugly demoness, I have had enough 
 of you. You shall either send for me to my 
 house before sundown, promising to pay 
 tribute according to custom, or I shall 
 report the whole matter to the Collector 
 Sahib when he comes to his tents this 
 evening, and you will be sent to prison 
 for five years, or even transported to the 
 Burning Islands for life." 
 
 When he spoke, the Babus all winced. 
 They hated to be reminded of such mis- 
 fortunes, which might possibly overtake 
 themselves some day, and they dreaded 
 to lose caste with the Collector by being 
 mixed up as witnesses in a street brawl. 
 They heartily wished themselves out of it; 
 wished they had left Kela Bai atone; 
 wished they had not brought the Sub-In- 
 spector. A sudden revulsion of feeling 
 ran over them, and left them cold. As 
 for Kela Bai, with all her courage, she 
 shivered with fear, and her women moaned 
 in terror. They believed in the terrors 
 31
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 they were threatened with, and wild pic- 
 tures of poverty, destitution, bondage, 
 exile, and death rushed over their hearts. 
 They had no way of knowing exactly how 
 great a danger overshadowed them, and 
 suffered all the horrors of the terrible un- 
 known. 
 
 The Babus began to pluck at the Sub- 
 Inspector's elbow, with a show of familiar- 
 ity and confidence ; but he turned haugh- 
 tily on them, saying: " Sirs, give me your 
 names. I shall want them as witnesses." 
 He was not certain that he intended to 
 accuse her ; but he was certain that she 
 had slighted him and mocked him, and he 
 was angrily vindictive. 
 
 Kela Bai's spirit began to turn on itself, 
 as she saw the cowed looks of her first tor- 
 mentors. Her wrath was once more grow- 
 ing to white heat. The Sub-Inspector 
 pushed the Babus out of her path, and 
 showing his teeth, snarled at her : 
 
 "Now, you ugly pariah, go to your 
 wretched house. If your messenger does 
 not come for me before sundown, I report
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 to the Collector Sahib, and then the An- 
 daman Islands and exile." 
 
 Then she burst forth in magnificent 
 wrath : 
 
 " Son of a pig! Desecrator of temples! 
 Murderer of babes ! Bribe-eater! Swine! 
 Monkey! Killer of cows! " 
 
 At the last deadly insult the Sub-In- 
 spector cowered for a moment under the 
 blast of her rage, and grew grey with pas- 
 sion. Then he strode up to her and struck 
 her on the check with the back of his 
 hand the first blow she had ever received 
 in her life. She snapped at his hand with 
 her white teeth, and was rising to scratch 
 his face, with the prospect of an exceed- 
 ingly ugly row, when the boy got his bul- 
 locks started, by tremendous tail-twisting, 
 and the jerk sent Kela Bai into Mani 
 Bewa's arms. It showed the cowed spirit 
 of the crowd, that no one thought of laugh- 
 ing at her downfall. 
 
 The storm was broken up, but the rag- 
 ing echoes of it went down the street, as 
 Kela Bai leant out of her bullock-cart, fac-
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 ing the Sub-Inspector, and pouring forth 
 the vials of her wrath. Behari Babu stood 
 in the middle of the street, speechless and 
 white at that last insult, his hands clutch- 
 ing open and shut. When she disappeared 
 he turned on his heel without a word to 
 the Babus, and strode off with his chin in 
 the air, leaving them to depart, silent, 
 crestfallen, and bedraggled. 
 
 The impetus which had carried the bul- 
 lock-cart forward soon wore itself out ; the 
 oxen came to a standstill, and with lowered 
 heads began to blow the dust with their 
 nostrils. The boy was quaking, with 
 parched lips, yet thinking that he would 
 stab the Sub-Inspector if any harm came 
 to Kela Bai, whom he sincerely loved. 
 Moti Bibi and Mani Bewa were abject. 
 
 "Kela Bai," they wailed, "send quick 
 for the Sub-Inspector. Say you will obey 
 his orders. Send quick, Kela Bai! Do 
 what he wants. We shall be ruined, 
 starved, cast out, tortured! " 
 
 In Kela Bai herself a fierce battle was 
 being fought between cold fear and anger. 
 34
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 She had cause for fear. Her enemy was 
 a despot, and the Powers were on his side. 
 He had had women tortured in outlying 
 villages before, and kept the matter dark. 
 He had woven webs of false accusation, 
 and sent his victims to prison. He levied 
 tribute right and left, under threat of 
 denunciation. Then came a wave of pas- 
 sionate indignation. She would never 
 submit, never disgrace herself. She would 
 defy him, be avenged. 
 
 " Kela Bai, we are miserable old women! 
 We shall be cast forth to starve and die 
 like dogs! Send for the Sub-Inspector! " 
 
 The bullocks still snuffled in the dust: 
 The boy still sharpened his knife in 
 thought, sobbing softly. Kela Bai saw 
 pictures of herself bound, carried away, 
 tied, lashed with whips, insulted. All 
 this her enemy's anger might mean. She 
 saw herself in dungeons, behind bars, 
 chained in the dark, starving. Worst of 
 all, set free years later to beg, her youth 
 and power all gone, wrinkled and grey like 
 the two old hags. Then anger flamed up 
 35
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 again. She would die, but she would not 
 submit. And with that she burst out sob- 
 bing. After a while she grew quieter, and 
 told the boy to drive on to the temple. 
 She needed counsel and the relief of tears. 
 
 They stopped at the gate of the old tem- 
 ple of grey stone. Kela Bai entered be- 
 tween the worn and twisted pillars daubed 
 with paint. The old Brahman in charge 
 was her special friend. He used to chuck 
 her under the chin, and teach her scraps 
 of Sanskrit. He was plump and grey- 
 headed, with a fat, good-natured face, and 
 a toga like a Roman augur. 
 
 He was really glad to see her, and was 
 greatly astonished when she made no re- 
 ply to his greeting: "Eh-eh-eh, my little 
 dear!" with a pinch on her brown shoul- 
 der. Then he saw she was in trouble, and 
 grew sympathetic and concerned on the 
 instant. 
 
 Kela Bai passed him without a word in 
 
 the narrow cavern-like entrance, and went 
 
 on to the shrine under the dome. There 
 
 was a tray of red dye there, a piece of an- 
 
 36
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 cient brass- work from Benares. She laid 
 her right hand palm downwards in it, and 
 then struck her hand against the wall, 
 leaving a red imprint of her palm. This 
 was the sign of her visit to the deity. 
 
 The goddess was a grim, four-armed 
 thing in a well, with marigolds round her 
 neck, and flowers floating in the water 
 round her. It was quiet and dark in there 
 under the dome, and the air was full of 
 the prayers of countless generations. Kela 
 Bai joined her palms together and made 
 obeisance to the goddess, who was, for her, 
 the kind Mother of all living. She bowed 
 before the image, and rested her head on 
 the cool stone coping of the well. She 
 told the Mother the story of her persecu- 
 tion and her present fears. Then the 
 great calm of the place descended upon 
 her, and her own little life seemed like a 
 mote dancing in the sunbeam light, tran- 
 sitory, insignificant. And when she had 
 rested there, her spirit began to revive, 
 with all its rich endowment of original 
 sin, and her quick mind wove a hundred 
 37
 
 Kela Bai : An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 stratagems against her enemy, each to give 
 way before another, more ingenious and 
 more impracticable. She kissed her hand 
 to the goddess a thing never contem- 
 plated in the rites of her faith and 
 tripped out again through the arched pas- 
 sage, slapping the old Brahman on the 
 shoulder as she ran past, and ducking as 
 he tried to seize her. 
 
 But that gay mood was short-lived. As 
 she came forth into the glare of day, Mani 
 Bewa and Moti Bibi were muttering to- 
 gether, plotting how they might give her 
 up, and so save themselves. So she div- 
 ined from their sullen, confused silence 
 and averted looks. She looked from them 
 to the boy. There was boundless devotion 
 in his eyes, but no help. And her trouble 
 came over her again like an overwhelming 
 sea. She motioned to the boy to go home- 
 wards, and then sank down in the cart in 
 dark and utter misery.
 
 II 
 
 The wings of night were spread over 
 Bengal. The moon poured white showers 
 through the darkness, silvering the rice- 
 fields, that faded away to dim infinitudes, 
 under a pale blue veil of mist. 
 
 The Collector's tents were pitched in a 
 grove of mango-trees, that stood ankle- 
 deep in their own shadows. The moon- 
 light sparkled on the glossy blackness of 
 the leaves, and fell in white splashes on 
 the canvas. Ghostly figures of watchmen 
 snored beside the ashes of their fires, their 
 spears resting against the tree-stems. A 
 stillness throbbed over all. 
 
 Suddenly the veil of silence was rent in 
 pieces. A piercing shriek came out of the 
 mist. Another answered it, from far off, 
 then another. Then shriek followed 
 shriek on all sides, quick, ear-splitting, 
 horrible, full of tortured and tormented
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 wailing. The air was shattered into short 
 waves of terror, that changed slowly into 
 mocking laughter, and then vanished in 
 sudden silence. The jackals were gathering 
 in the rice-fields. 
 
 The moon looked down upon the night, 
 and upon the tents of the Collector Sahib 
 among the mango-trees; she even peeped 
 within the tent, and smiled an inscrutable 
 Eastern smile. Outside it was cold enough, 
 and the coats of the jackals were wet with 
 dew. But the Collector Sahib, within the 
 double shelter of his tent, did not feel 
 cold. He sat on his camp-bed with his 
 feet tucked up, feeling oppressively hot; 
 he was thoroughly down-hearted and 
 wretched, without any palpable cause 
 whatever. The mosquito curtain let down 
 round his bed seemed a cloud of black 
 melancholy, instead of white gauze. The 
 figured brown lining of the inner tent 
 looked dull and dispiriting. The lamp 
 seemed to radiate heat on his hot back, 
 and the whirring wings of the fans in its 
 draught-chamber tormented him. 
 40
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 He was dressed in a Jaeger vest and 
 hose, for coolness, and his feet were bare. 
 Yet he was heated, red-faced, and discon- 
 solate. He felt like a little child left alone 
 in the dark; he felt as if all his friends 
 were dead, and as if he hated everybody. 
 The Collector tried to find comfort in his 
 forlornness by reminding himself how 
 great a man he was, and how high up in 
 the Service. He told himself how near his 
 pension was, supposing he resisted the 
 temptation of further honours, sure to be 
 pressed on so distinguished a Civilian. He 
 made a great show of remembering these 
 things, but it was unavailing. Desolation 
 was heavy upon him, and jackal-voices 
 were howling in his heart. 
 
 He tried to think of his mother, and of 
 the consolations of religion, and of his soul ; 
 but only to decide that it would probably 
 not be saved, and that he no longer cared. 
 He felt utterly deserted and alone, with 
 that ghostly world of chill mist all about 
 him, where the jackals howled, in the dim 
 and gruesome vastness of the night. 
 41
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 When ghosts had been pulling at his 
 hair for abject ages, he started suddenly, 
 full of apprehension. His ear had caught 
 a quick rustling at the door of his tent, 
 like a snake turning among pebbles, or a 
 leopard brushing between the sheaths of 
 the sugar-canes. Humanly speaking, the 
 Collector was a brave man. He had killed 
 innumerable cobras, and sent home many 
 spangled leopard-skins. Yet at that mid- 
 night sound he felt the hair stirring on 
 his head, and his face grew rigid with 
 fright. 
 
 Again the door-hanging rustled. Then 
 it twitched suddenly aside, and a dim fig- 
 ure slid into the tent. In his misery, the 
 Collector had sat staring at the lamp till 
 his eyes were full of green flames. At first 
 he could distinguish nothing. Then two 
 gleaming eyes appeared, and then the head 
 and shoulders of a girl; the flames faded, 
 and he saw her plainly. She was lithe 
 and supple, and finely moulded. Her 
 breath was coming hard, she was almost 
 panting, in mixed excitement and fear. 
 42
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 She still clutched the door-hanging in her 
 left hand, and her big, gleaming eyes were 
 fixed on the Collector's face as he sat there 
 speechless. His midnight visitor was Kela 
 Bai. 
 
 Very alluring she was, and comely; with 
 rounded curves, sleek hair, glossy skin, 
 small hands, and bare feet. The thin 
 muslin Sari, bordered with red, fell in 
 soft folds about her body. Her lips were 
 just parted, as she leant slightly forward 
 gazing at him, and a warmth and vigour 
 radiated from her which came between the 
 Collector and his thoughts. 
 
 "If she would look away for a mo- 
 ment," he thought, "I could pull myself 
 together." Then, half -unconsciously, he 
 began : 
 
 " When a man's afraid, a beautiful maid 
 Is a cheering sight to see, . . ." 
 
 in a low, colourless voice, and then stopped. 
 
 Kela Bai started at the words, and said : 
 " Sahib! " and she, too, stopped dead. 
 
 Without willing it, her eyes were staring 
 43
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 him out of countenance, like the eyes of a 
 child. But she was unconscious of his 
 trouble. She had not come to herself yet, 
 though her fear was rapidly changing into 
 wonder. It had cost her a desperate effort 
 to determine on this invasion, and a des- 
 perate effort to carry it out when deter- 
 mined on. She was still quivering with 
 the strain of her resolve. With dread and 
 imminent persecution hanging over her, 
 she had come to make a last wild struggle 
 on her own behalf, to use tears, entreaties, 
 supplications, even undue influence if 
 need were, if by any means she might en- 
 list the Collector's sympathies on her side. 
 For she had defied her enemy, barring her 
 door against him as soon as she returned, 
 and only taking down the barrier half an 
 hour ago, when the moon was riding high 
 through the purple night. She knew him 
 well enough to be sure that he would keep 
 his word, and make complaint against her; 
 knew his ways well enough to know that 
 the accusation would grow as big as mount- 
 ains under the pressure of his hate. And 
 44
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 she guessed, rightly, that the dread indict- 
 ment was already in the Collector's keep- 
 ing- 
 She had strained her will to keep from 
 thinking of her danger as she stole down 
 the sleeping street, past the lotus-pond 
 where the toads were muttering, and down 
 the pathway through the ghostly rice- 
 fields. Twice a jackal had started up un- 
 der her very feet, and she felt her side 
 throb yet, from the frightened beating 
 of her heart. She had crouched long in 
 the deep trench round the mango-grove, 
 watching the sentries, and fearing that 
 they were watching her. But a long snore 
 from one of them had vastly relieved her, 
 and then she saw that their fires were out. 
 Even then her dangers were not over, for 
 the Collector's horses had snorted : she 
 feared the grooms would wake, and she had 
 actually stepped over the body of the or- 
 derly who was sleeping in the veranda of 
 the tent. That was at the moment when 
 the Collector Sahib first heard the rustling 
 at the door. In the long, tearful watches 
 45
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 of the hot afternoon, and through the fall- 
 ing shades of evening, when she was vibrat- 
 ing between anger and fear, and contempt 
 for her spiritless old women whom she 
 had terrified into sullen silence, she had 
 worked out an imagined plan of how she 
 would proceed to supplicate the Great 
 White Lord, if haply she might steal to the 
 tent unseen. She would bravely enter the 
 tent so far she had realized her plan 
 then she would come up as close as poss- 
 ible to the Collector, fall at his feet in 
 tears, and clasp his knees. After a while 
 she would gather courage to sob forth her 
 tale of woe, and, weeping, beg him to help 
 her against her enemy, or to kill her on 
 the spot. In either event she would escape 
 from the horrible overhanging shadow. 
 
 But all this seemed quite incongruous 
 in presence of the sad, red-faced man sit- 
 ting there under the mosquito-net, blink- 
 ing at her, and muttering words she did 
 not understand. She had thought of him 
 as a Mighty Conqueror, one of the rulers 
 of the land, ferocious and masterful, yet 
 46
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 with one tender spot amid BO much fierce- 
 ness. For her intuition told her that, in 
 some things, all men are very much alike. 
 
 Her mind groped round for something 
 to hold, so unexpected was it all. She 
 was quite disconcerted. She stood there, 
 breathing hard in her excitement and 
 quickly vanishing fear, still grasping the 
 door-hanging in her left hand. 
 
 The Collector Sahib thought of Marcus 
 Aurelius and of Don Juan, but did not feel 
 quite equal to either r61e. He watched 
 her bright eyes, wistful with weeping, the 
 play of the lamplight over her pretty 
 body, her right foot brushing to and fro 
 over the carpet, and the silver bangle flash- 
 ing white on her brown ankle. He vividly 
 realized that here was an attempt to influ- 
 ence the majesty of the law, and his eye 
 wandered along the red border of her Sari. 
 At the very least, it was a piece of quite 
 unwarrantable trespass, at midnight, in a 
 lonely spot, in the tent of a high official 
 and father of a family. He knew that it 
 was his bounden duty to call the orderly, 
 47
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 and have her instantly arrested, or at least 
 ejected without a moment's delay. Yet 
 an inner voice told him that the orderly 
 would sleep in peace, that the sentinels 
 would snore beside their burned-out watch- 
 fires, while the jackals tripped in and out 
 among the tent-ropes. 
 
 He knew what arts she trusted in, to 
 win his advocacy, and this was a reason 
 doubly strong for awaking the orderly, 
 and asserting the majesty of the law. But 
 he felt, with almost ludicrous clearness, 
 that while those bright, wistful eyes held 
 him, he had no power either to haughtily 
 rebuke attempted bribery or to hold out 
 a depraved hand for the bribe. He was 
 whimsically, almost pathetically, conscious 
 of the meaning of her wondering gaze, 
 and felt a certain guilt at disappointing 
 her. For at the moment he was hardly 
 the fierce and masterful White Man of her 
 dreams. So there was nothing left for 
 him but to sit there and wait for Kela 
 Bai. 
 
 She had almost completely recovered 
 48
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 from her first fright and trepidation. As 
 the strain wore off her nerves, she drew a 
 long sigh. At the sound of it the Col- 
 lector started, for his nerves also had been 
 badly strained. That made her smile, like 
 a sudden ray of sunlight in her witchery. 
 The Collector smiled shyly in return, 
 rather unconsciously imitating her, than 
 freely on his own account. But even that 
 stiff and rather unnatural smile was enough 
 to break the charm that held her motion- 
 less the charm of extreme bewilderment 
 and surprise. She let go the door-hang- 
 ing, stepped forward into the circle of 
 light, and her original intention asserted 
 itself. 
 
 With a swift, light step " like a black 
 leopard," the Collector was conscious of 
 saying to himself she crossed the space 
 between the tent-door and the mosquito- 
 curtain, lifted the folds of white gauze in 
 her left hand, and curved her right arm 
 round the Collector Sahib's red, warm 
 neck. Even this was a change of her first- 
 conceived strategy, for, without being con- 
 49
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 scious of it, she felt how out of place it 
 would be to fall at this shy, fat man's feet. 
 
 For his part, he prayed for courage to 
 put his arm round her waist. But the 
 courage did not come. So he sat with 
 downcast eyes, watching his ankles, feel- 
 ing his breath come and go, and keenly 
 conscious of the oddity of his position. 
 In a moment he was smiling, but this 
 time on his own account. 
 
 Kela Bai saw the smile and gave him an 
 encouraging little pat on the shoulder he 
 had been thinking how nice and cool her 
 arm was, round his neck. As she patted 
 him, the weight and burden of her errand 
 seemed to fall instantly from her shoul- 
 ders. She forgot altogether why she had 
 come. Her eyes had been wandering 
 round the tent, resting for a moment on 
 this object and on that, and now she 
 caught up the fold of the mosquito-cur- 
 tain, and went out again from under it 
 with the same swift gesture. 
 
 The Collector's arm faintly sketched a 
 motion of holding her close to him, but it 
 50
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 was left unfinished, and his hand dropped 
 on his knee. 
 
 "Temptations of Saint Anthony," he 
 said softly to himself, " but which of us is 
 the saint ? " Then he smiled again. Kela 
 Bai was moving rapidly about the tent, 
 touching his chairs, his tables, the hang- 
 ings, his boxes. She turned quickly as he 
 spoke and asked : 
 
 "What does the Sahib say?" caught 
 his smile, smiled back again at him, and 
 then turned away without waiting for an 
 answer. The riding-suit which he had 
 taken off hung across the back of a chair. 
 She peered at the bags curiously, took 
 them up with a quick motion by the two 
 back buttons, and held them for a mo- 
 ment aloft. Then turning them round in 
 her left hand, she made as if to spank the 
 seat of the trousers with her right. They 
 were very baggy, like a caricature of the 
 already portly form of the Collector Sahib. 
 She smiled a flashing smile back at him 
 over her shoulder, and her teeth gleamed 
 between her red lips. Even then, through 
 51
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 her gaiety, lie noticed the hollow rings 
 round her eyes, the traces of many tears. 
 He asked himself : 
 
 " Why do I not find out what she has 
 come for ? Not to spank my riding-bags, 
 I expect." But he got no answer. 
 
 The lamp now caught Kela Bai's atten- 
 tion. She was interested, because she had 
 recently bought a glass one from the Belati 
 store, and was mentally comparing her 
 purchase with his. She quickly dropped 
 the trousers, which fell in an unregarded 
 heap on the carpet, and bent her head to 
 listen to the whirring fans within the 
 lamp's brass stem. Her lamp was not 
 like that, and she did not understand it. 
 A sudden click among the wheels, as she 
 bent her ear down low, made her start vio- 
 lently and press her hand to her heart, so 
 unexpected was it, and so absorbed had 
 she been. In a moment the Collector 
 Sahib found himself standing beside her, 
 reassuring her, and explaining the mach- 
 inery. He said it was better to have a 
 fan in the stem, to make the draught, be- 
 52
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 cause if you had a chimney, especially in 
 camp, flies would get into it and choke 
 the flame. He felt that he was carefully 
 picking his words, like a nervous orator, 
 and at the same time he was trying to get 
 as close to her as possible. 
 
 He lifted the lamp to show her how to 
 wind it, but her thoughts were already 
 elsewhere. He noticed it instantly, and 
 was as abashed as if a duchess had snubbed 
 him. He set the lamp down softly, and 
 slipped back under the mosquito-curtain, 
 trying to carry the matter off by humming 
 a tune, but immediately noticed that he 
 had lost the air, and subsided into silence. 
 He felt like a scolded schoolboy, and an 
 echo of his loneliness came back to him, but 
 this time with a tinge of personal affront. 
 
 He watched her for a while as if she had 
 been a hundred miles away, and did not 
 concern him in the least. She had been 
 going through his neckties, and was now 
 trying on his pith helmet at the looking- 
 glass, quite forgetful, if the truth be told, 
 of the good man's presence, and wholly 
 53
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 absorbed in her novel occupation. She 
 had never worn a hat of any kind in all 
 her life, and she was enjoying her first ex- 
 perience greatly. Then she suddenly re- 
 membered her first and only attempt at 
 footwear, and the hot wrath of the Cabuli, 
 and turned towards the Collector Sahib 
 with quick apprehension. But his proud 
 aloofness reassured her, and she set the 
 pith helmet firmly on her head, though a 
 little on one side. Then she kissed her 
 hand to herself in the looking-glass, and 
 danced a step or two before it, as she had 
 done in the morning that was so long ago. 
 There was something very droll and win- 
 ning in her little by-play. She looked for 
 all the world like a big mushroom, in her 
 white drapery, with the broad pith helmet 
 on her head. And she was evidently so 
 full of her pleasure that the Collector 
 found himself entering into her feelings, 
 and following every shade of her changing 
 fancy. His head even moved a little in 
 time with her dancing. 
 
 Now she grew tired of the helmet, and 
 54
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 set it down with a quick gesture beside 
 the riding things on the floor. Then she 
 knelt down suddenly, just outside the 
 mosquito-curtain, to inspect the spurs on 
 his riding-boots. She was very close to 
 him now, and well within the lamplight, 
 and a brown arm and shoulder were clear 
 of her Sari. A warm breath from her body 
 reached him, mixed with a faint scent of 
 cocoanut oil. The Collector felt himself 
 drifting. And he felt braver, now. Pink 
 lights flashed before his eyes. 
 
 She suddenly looked up with a childlike 
 smile, full into his eyes. She had thrust 
 her bare arms down into his boots, as child- 
 ren sometimes do when they are playing 
 quadruped, and had looked up for his ap- 
 probation, just like a child. The contrast 
 between the expression of his eyes and 
 what she had expected jarred her like a 
 dash of cold water. A veil of disappoint- 
 ment fell over her face, and the hurt to 
 her confidence took all the light out of 
 her eyes. She became suddenly downcast, 
 and her lips trembled. 
 55
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 The Collector, following every shade of 
 feeling, saw it, and made a desperate effort. 
 He struggled painfully ashore, this side of 
 the waterfall, and the flashes of pink light, 
 that had flared up as she knelt so close to 
 him, flickered and sank, and then died 
 out altogether. 
 
 "I sympathize with old Saint Anthony ! " 
 he muttered, shaking himself. 
 
 His eyes showed the change, and Kela 
 Bai felt it at once. But she pulled her 
 hands out of the boots, and stood up, a 
 good deal sobered, and her eyes wandered 
 aimlessly round the tent. Things did not 
 interest her any more. 
 
 However, Kela Bai's buoyant fancy soon 
 got the better of her shock. In a moment 
 she was looking at the Collector's despatch- 
 box, which held the records of various 
 land-cases he had in hand, with revenue 
 disputes, police reports, draft memoranda 
 for the Lieutenant- Govern or, a scheme for 
 a new jail, and much more of the same 
 Borfc. The key was in the box, and his 
 rank, and the name of his district, were 
 56
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 painted in white letters on the lid. It 
 was a japanned embodiment of the British- 
 Indian Government. 
 
 Kela Bai at once recognized its official 
 and formal air. And that stirred up an 
 old curiosity within her. Her friends, as 
 has been told, came from all over India. 
 Or, to put it in another way, all wanderers 
 naturally found their way to her hospit- 
 able home. They told her strange, fasci- 
 nating tales of the bigness and mystery of 
 the land, of wide rivers and monstrous 
 alligators ; of hills crowned with haunted 
 forts, where dead men challenged each 
 other, keeping sentry ; of green jungles, 
 where peacocks flashed shrieking by, like 
 winged rainbows ; of remote upland val- 
 leys, with cave-temples, full of the ghosts 
 of bygone seers ; of white beaches, where 
 the surf thundered along, with a fringe of 
 moonlight on the crest of every wave ; of 
 walled cities, with many-coloured throngs, 
 great rich men in golden carriages, and 
 gorgeous warriors, and elephant-riding 
 kings ; of red plains, where the gazelles 
 57
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 tripped and trotted ; of vast marshes, 
 where buffaloes sulked among the reeds ; 
 of night-haunting tigers and sprites and 
 demons, and shapeless aboriginal gods ; of 
 infinite hills and dales, inhabited by ten 
 millions and ten millions of many-coloured 
 people, like the Bengali Babus whom she 
 hated, and large-eyed Madrassis, and fero- 
 cious Cabulis, and wily Kashmiris, and 
 also by dainty, dear creatures like herself. 
 And she also knew that all this wonder- 
 land, in its bigness and wildness, was, 
 from the wrath of the gods and of the 
 Brahmans, ruled by white people, very 
 august and terrible. And times and 
 again she had dimly wondered, in that 
 pretty head of hers, how it was all done. 
 
 She had an intuition that the secret of 
 it all was somehow hidden in that square 
 tin box, painted black and lettered in 
 white; perhaps in the form of some strange 
 amulet, or Tantrik device, or a djinn such 
 as the fisherman found in the leaden casket, 
 though she had never quite believed that 
 story. She was right, but she would 
 58
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 hardly have recognized that amulet in 
 those bundles of paper, with their red 
 waist-bands of tape. 
 
 The awesome ness of her position, in ven- 
 turing near such supernatural powers, 
 struck her suddenly, and the Collector 
 Sahib regained some of his lost prestige. 
 She looked up at him timidly, yet full of 
 simmering curiosity, for countenance and 
 protection, and asked in a low, winning 
 voice : 
 
 " May I look inside ?" 
 
 The Collector Sahib was still under the 
 influence of the previous silence. He only 
 nodded, without speaking. 
 
 Kela Bai turned the key and lifted the 
 lid of the despatch-box cautiously, as if 
 half-expecting that djinn to ooze forth in 
 smoke: some red-eyed demon, or, at the 
 very least, a squeaking ghost. Then, with 
 one of those sudden, resolute gestures so 
 characteristic of her, she threw the lid 
 back, and let the lamplight pour in 
 among the papers. By this time the Col- 
 lector was thoroughly absorbed in watch- 
 59
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 ing her, wondering what she would do 
 next. With quite unconscious sympathy 
 he was following every shade of her 
 feelings, and looking at those familiar 
 things through her wide, wondering 
 eyes. 
 
 There was a good deal of coin lying in 
 the despatch-box: scores of silver rupees 
 thrown in loose, and wandering about in 
 admired confusion. The gleam of the 
 white metal caught her eye at once. She 
 began to hunt them out, chasing them into 
 the corners of the box, as she chased the 
 silver fish in the tank among the lotus- 
 leaves. She captured them all at last, and 
 set them up in little piles of ten, as she 
 had seen the Kashmiri merchants do, on 
 the camp table where the box was stand- 
 ing. When she had got up to thirty little 
 heaps of ten, she looked up at the Col- 
 lector in sincere admiration. 
 
 " So much money ? " she said, smiling, 
 and showing her teeth. 
 
 The Collector Sahib had a fine sense of 
 humour hidden away in him. A gleam of 
 60
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 mischief lit up his eyes, for all the world 
 like her own. 
 
 "My dear," he said, "that is a mere 
 trifle. You know that I am called the 
 ' Collector ' Sahib ? Which means that my 
 business is to collect. I have come here to 
 collect. We are all here to collect and 
 to collect as much as ever we can. That 
 is why they entitle us Collectors, and Dep- 
 uty Collectors, and Assistant Collectors, 
 and Acting Collectors. We all collect. 
 The whole British-Indian Government col- 
 lects. That is what it exists for and we 
 collect to pay the Collectors. Delight- 
 fully simple ! The whole theory of the 
 state in a nutshell. My dear, you never 
 before realized what a beneficent govern- 
 ment you lived under, but you must prom- 
 ise never to tell what I have told you. It 
 is a secret between ourselves! " 
 
 Not much danger of her telling, for she 
 had not understood a word. The oration, 
 however, considerably overawed her, and, 
 for the moment, the Collector Sahib was 
 evidently the dominant power. At first 
 61
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 her sudden apparition, on the top of his 
 strange loneliness, had demoralized him; 
 then the battle between Don Juan and 
 Saint Anthony had paralyzed his activity. 
 But now the Saint was strong again, and 
 triumphing in his victory. 
 
 Kela Bai was idly turning over the pap- 
 ers in the box, and catching a line here 
 and there; for, unlike most of her country- 
 women, she had learned to read. And 
 many of the papers were in her own 
 tongue. Suddenly she stopped at one of 
 them, on yellow paper, and drew a quick, 
 gasping breath, and began to read very 
 tremulously and very slowly, pressing her 
 hand against her heart. It was a police 
 report, written by her enemy, the Sub-In- 
 spector, and setting forth complaint against 
 one Kela Bai, of Belgaun village, a known 
 disorderly character, who had caused a riot 
 in the village of Belgaun, in which three 
 men had been dangerously wounded at her 
 instigation, two shops sacked, one cart 
 overturned, and so forth and so forth, 
 names of witnesses, signed and counter-
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 signed. For the Sub-Inspector had been 
 working up the case, and had a fine sense 
 of what a complaint ought to be. As it 
 stood, she was liable to two years' impris- 
 onment with hard labor. He had wanted 
 to include manslaughter, but his nerve had 
 failed, so he had contented himself with a 
 simple cutting affray. Even then it looked 
 terribly black and menacing. 
 
 As she read, she grew more and more 
 alarmed. Her cheeks grew cold, and all 
 animation died out of her eyes, leaving 
 only dull fear. She was back once more 
 at the starting-point of her emotions, 
 plunged suddenly into rude reality. She 
 unconsciously fell into the train of action 
 she had first planned. She threw herself at 
 the Collector's feet, crying in good earnest, 
 and thinking far more of prison-bars than 
 of the wiles she was to use to escape them. 
 
 The Collector found himself stroking 
 her head, and using all his arts to console 
 her. He rubbed her cheek, and spoke 
 soothingly to her, in a caressing voice. 
 Then she began to sob aloud : 
 63
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 "Collector Sahib! Protector of the 
 poor ! Incarnation of virtue ! My pet- 
 ition is this. I am a poor orphan. " The 
 words of the speech she had prepared were 
 coming back to her. 
 
 Then she suddenly realized his hand 
 against her cheek, stopped sobbing, and 
 looked up at the Collector Sahib through 
 her tears. He was smiling at her a good- 
 natured, fatherly smile, and she felt won- 
 derfully reassured and comforted. The 
 Collector would never have confessed it, 
 but a good deal of the glow of that smile 
 came from the sense that he had the upper 
 hand, and was paying her off for that mas- 
 terful stare which had so discomposed him 
 on her first arrival. 
 
 A feeling of restf ulness and assuagement 
 caine over her. She was glad now that she 
 had found those papers, and had the mat- 
 ter out. And she looked up at him, with 
 her eyes still dewy, and a tear half-way 
 down each cheek, and smiled. A queer 
 smile twitched his face; he had just 
 thought of Mrs. Collector, and how he 
 64
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 should explain the situation if she sud- 
 denly appeared. Not much danger, how- 
 ever, for she was ten thousand miles away. 
 So his thoughts came back to Kela Bai, 
 and his smile changed into an answer to 
 hers. 
 
 They looked into each other's eyes for a 
 full minute, and at the end of it they were 
 smiling still. While the seconds were slip- 
 ping swiftly past, they had both gone 
 through a world of strange feelings. The 
 Collector had vividly realized, for the 
 first time in his life, the throbbing life of 
 another human being outside himself. 
 Under the magnetism of her eyes he felt 
 that she was real, that he had been follow- 
 ing all her emotions as if they had been 
 his own. Through her great dark eyes he 
 was looking into the myriad eyes of the 
 Indian world eyes that gleamed, full of 
 impenetrable mystery; eyes that glowed 
 with emotions like his own, yet different; 
 eyes that looked on the same green earth 
 and overarching sky, and saw them trans- 
 formed and haunted; endless myriads of 
 65
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 eyes seemed to be looking into his through 
 hers: all full of life, full of recognition; 
 and behind them were others, of the dead 
 who yet live, going back generation on 
 generation, for a myriad years, full of the 
 awful light that lightens the heart of man. 
 All life rose before him, from its twilight 
 dawn, glowing before him out of those 
 myriad eyes. And he felt the eternal mys- 
 tery and might that lay behind them. The 
 soul in those eyes had glowed for ever and 
 ever, from the beginningless beginning to 
 the endless end. A veil was lifted, and he 
 had beheld the vast ocean of the souls of 
 men. 
 
 Many men had looked into those bright, 
 luminous eyes, but none before had seen 
 a vision, or anything more than an image 
 of themselves. And now there was an ans- 
 wering vision in her own wild heart. 
 
 At first she had looked at the Collector, 
 smiling dreamily, with the feeling of a lit- 
 tle child who was crying, and has been 
 comforted. Then she felt a great restful- 
 ness, a reaction from all the strong feelings
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 she had gone through since dawn ; and for 
 a while she nestled in that feeling of com- 
 fort and quiet, and desired nothing fur- 
 ther. But her imagination was too active, 
 her will too strong, to remain quiet long. 
 In her turn, she felt the magnetism of her 
 new friend pouring into her from his eyes, 
 and it was strange to her and disquieting. 
 She felt herself touching new sides of life, 
 undreamed of before, but palpably present 
 in this stranger, who was yet so clearly 
 akin; who had comforted her so wonder- 
 fully in her distress, so easily overruling 
 all the powers that had menaced her. She 
 began to dream of hidden lands, of distant 
 peoples, of wide prospects, of unseen cities. 
 He had beheld them all, though they may 
 have meant little enough to him. Her old 
 life grew suddenly narrow. It would not 
 fit her any more. Not that she felt any 
 sudden moral revulsion, for she had never 
 regarded the question of morals. But that 
 there were so many other horizons, and 
 that her will was straining to go forth and 
 make them her own. And she was not a 
 67
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 whit abashed by so big a world. She had 
 suddenly gained such comfort from so 
 strange and unexpected a source that she 
 divined that there is comfort everywhere, 
 if one could only find it. She felt that 
 she was already provided for from of old, 
 and a Sanskrit verse came back to her, that 
 her old Brahman friend had taught her in 
 bygone days: 
 
 " Who gave the swan his whiteness and the parrot 
 
 wings of green, 
 
 Who painted bright the peacock, will He not 
 care for thee ? " 
 
 She was repeating it to herself now, and 
 the Collector would have been greatly as- 
 tonished if he could have divined her feel- 
 ing, and understood that the vision came 
 through him. The tide of courage rose 
 welling in her heart, and she felt the over- 
 shadowing Peace answer and uphold her. 
 
 So these two had their revelations, in the 
 queerest possible way; and they realized 
 that, as they smiled at each other. She
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 was resting her head against his knee now, 
 and he was stroking it. 
 
 " Let me tell you about the policeman," 
 she said, after a while, speaking simply 
 and naturally, with none of those wreathed 
 phrases that adorned her first set speech ; 
 and she went on to talk about herself, her 
 life, and her ambitions; her friends, her 
 enemies, her rivals; gradually unfolding 
 the whole life of her people as it really is. 
 The Collector listened spellbound, realiz- 
 ing that neither he nor any man had heard 
 these things before; that they moved in a 
 mist, while this was the reality; and he 
 murmured to himself: " It was worth liv- 
 ing twenty years in this blazing land to 
 hear this one tale." The magic door was 
 open before him, and he gazed through it 
 at the glowing, vividly mingled spectacle 
 with spellbound eyes. So he listened for a 
 long time in a revery, and, when she had 
 ended, he said : 
 
 " And the Light was the Life of 
 man. . . ." Then, after a pause,he added: 
 " Your case will be all right, little one."
 
 Kela Bai: An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 After a while Kela Bai suddenly laid 
 her hand on the Collector's, and pressed 
 it steadily and warmly. Then she rose to 
 her feet, smiled once more into his eyes, 
 and swiftly left the tent, vanishing into 
 the night. 
 
 The Collector sat there for a long time 
 pondering, her face still before him in 
 vision, her eyes looking into his. Now 
 and then the wail of the jackals rose round 
 the camp, broke in waves along his tent, 
 and sank away again into silence. 
 
 At last the Collector turned out the 
 lamp. The orderly still snored on the 
 veranda. The sleeping watchmen nodded 
 beneath the trees beside their burned-out 
 watchfires, their spears resting against the 
 stems. The jackals tripped in and out 
 amongst the tent-ropes, and the dew was 
 wet on their coats. The moonlight sil- 
 vered the rice-fields, glistened on the black- 
 ness of the leaves, and fell in white splashes 
 on the ground. A great stillness throbbed 
 over all. 
 
 70
 
 Ill 
 
 The Collector stepped forth briskly from 
 his tent, with an alert look in his eyes, and 
 gently rubbing his hands. His face was 
 pink, and the grey hair gleamed silvery at 
 his temples. He was dressed for a ride, 
 but had not put his helmet on. 
 
 The slant sun of the morning stretched 
 the shadows of the mango-trees far away 
 across the brown rice stubble behind the 
 camp. A heavy dew lay upon it, twink- 
 ling like wet diamonds in the sunlight, 
 and filling the air with a smell of damp 
 freshness. A pair of orioles darted across 
 the open, with the sun flashing on their 
 orange backs, and glinting on the glossy 
 black feathers of head and wings and tail. 
 They disappeared in the heavy green leaf- 
 age, and the deep gurgle of their voices 
 presently came forth. The Collector 
 smiled to himself as he watched them. 
 71
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 He had been dreaming about Kela Bai, 
 and the sense of her presence was fresh 
 upon him, but with a certain rakish wild- 
 ness, born of dreams. "I should have 
 held on that time," he murmured, and 
 smiled. 
 
 He walked a dozen paces to and fro on 
 the sand before the white cubes of the 
 tents, with their spider-lines and wide 
 verandas. The branches made shimmer- 
 ing shadows on their pointed roofs. His 
 butler, turbaned, soft-footed, and demure, 
 was spreading a wide cloth on a japanned 
 gipsy table, and presently set out a silver 
 teapot, and two slices of buttered toast. 
 The Collector watched with an approving 
 eye. Under the trees to the left, the blue- 
 turbaned grooms were rubbing down his 
 two big Australian horses, that snorted in 
 the coolness of the morning. The grooms 
 were purring with their lips in a way that 
 suggested quietness and peace. 
 
 A runner had just brought in the let- 
 ters. The Collector picked them up from 
 his table, sat down, and looked them over. 
 72
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 Then he made a little, wry grimace, and 
 put them down again. They were from 
 the folks at home, and his fancy was else- 
 where. His helmet was beside him on a 
 chair. He looked at it with an odd twink- 
 le in his eye, thinking how Kela Bai had 
 tried it on. He meant to take her case up 
 first, and " that beast, the Sub-Inspector," 
 as he mentally called him, would be on 
 hand presently with the witnesses. At 
 the fringe of the mango-grove towards the 
 village a crowd was gathering petitioners, 
 plaintiffs, defendants, hangers-on, brow- 
 beaten by a Brahman clerk in white mus- 
 lin, the same who had likened Kela Bai to 
 a peacock. He was harassed and fearful 
 at the thought of testifying in her case, 
 and therefore he ill-treated the lay crowd. 
 
 The Sub-Inspector, with his police ser- 
 geant and three constables, made their 
 appearance from the village. The Sub- 
 Inspector stalked under his white um- 
 brella, and held his chin up. But his eye 
 waited uneasily on the Collector Sahib. 
 
 The Collector finished his toast and 
 73
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 sipped his tea. Then he donned his hel- 
 met, a little self-consciously, and went to 
 meet his big brown Australian, which he 
 called Justinian, after the law-giver. Jus- 
 tinian was a new beast, fresh from Cal- 
 cutta, one of that season's importing, and 
 a bit unsteady and restive. The up-coun- 
 try groom was not the least afraid of him, 
 yet not on good terms with him, either. 
 So the horse hopped about when the Col- 
 lector gathered up the reins, and kicked 
 for the stirrup with his left foot; and even 
 after he found the stirrup, he had to dance 
 a bit, with his left hand on Justinian's 
 mane and his right on the saddle, before 
 he managed to get safe up. But once up, 
 he sat like a centaur, heels straight down, 
 and toes pointing straight forward and 
 with a flash of regret in his heart that 
 Kela Bai was not there to see him. He 
 knew he looked his best on horseback. 
 
 Justinian capered about a little, and 
 
 vibrated like an elastic spring, but quieted 
 
 down presently under the Collector's steady 
 
 hand. He turned slowly towards the river- 
 
 74
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 bank, passing close to the path along which 
 the Sub-Inspector was coming. When the 
 Collector rose from the table the Sub- 
 Inspector had quickened his step, his bear- 
 ing had grown more assertive, and his eye 
 more uneasy. The Collector understood 
 him to a hair. He rode directly towards 
 him, and then, apparently quite uncon- 
 scious of his presence, though only twenty 
 yards off, turned sharp to the left, and 
 cantered briskly down the soft green turf 
 along the river-bank, with its springy cush- 
 ion of sand under the short grass. 
 
 The Sub-Inspector's jaw fell as the 
 White Man disappeared, but he raised his 
 nose a little higher. He snapped round 
 at the sergeant, who was a Mohammedan : 
 
 "You fellow, you! Why do you walk 
 so close behind me ? You send the dust 
 into my face! " 
 
 The sergeant, being a man of little 
 spirit, dutifully fell back, and made no 
 reply. 
 
 Meanwhile the groom had stopped to 
 speak to the orderly, who had brought a 
 75
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 square teak table from the dinner-tent, 
 and was setting it up under the biggest 
 and shadiest mango-tree. 
 
 " We are going to hold court here this 
 morning ? " he asked the orderly, digging 
 his toes through the sand in a little bare 
 patch that was the orioles' dusting ground. 
 
 The orderly assented, looking up for a 
 moment at the groom, and then looking 
 down again. He had a face like a fox, 
 and looked willingly into no man's eyes. 
 
 " Sahib soon be back ? " asked the 
 groom again. 
 
 " In about an hour, as usual," answered 
 the orderly, and immediately regretted 
 that he had spoken. He generally em- 
 ployed that hour in blackmailing peti- 
 tioners, promising his influence with the 
 Collector, but had been unaccountably 
 thwarted recently, and so felt suspicious. 
 The butler had been intercepting his cli- 
 ents, assuring them that he, and not the 
 orderly, had the Sahib's ear; and the ser- 
 vants' tent was seething with the intrigue, 
 while petitioners quailed, fearing to bribe 
 76
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 the wrong man. After a while they would 
 compromise and divide, but just now they 
 were at daggers drawn. 
 
 "Whose case is on first?" asked the 
 groom, after considering a while. He had 
 an assignation in the village, and wanted 
 to learn his chance of slipping away. The 
 orderly looked up with his quick, foxlike 
 glance, and then down again at the locked 
 despatch-box he was setting on the table. 
 
 " Behari Babu and the lady in red," he 
 answered, grinning to himself, " Kela 
 Bai." 
 
 The groom was interested immediately. 
 He began to question within himself 
 whether this was not going to be more 
 interesting than his projected visit to the 
 village. 
 
 " We shall lock her up for a month or 
 two," went on the orderly, grinning still. 
 " It will be lonely in the village, and peo- 
 ple will be asking to be sent to jail. But 
 I have work to do," he broke off curtly, 
 remembering that the golden hour was 
 fleeting. 
 
 77
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 The groom went off muttering to him- 
 self. He could not decide whether to go 
 or stay, and so his temper suffered. The 
 Collector's second horse Prince, a liver- 
 bay, so dark as to be almost black was an 
 old friend of his, and had long had a play- 
 ful habit of snapping at his shoulder as he 
 went past. The groom turned angrily now, 
 and cuffed Prince on the cheek, though he 
 knew that it was only play. But Prince's 
 feelings were hurt for the next two days. 
 
 The shadows were growing shorter, and 
 the whiteness of the dew was lifting. The 
 Collector Sahib and Justinian appeared 
 down the river-bank, coming slowly back 
 towards the camp. He was looking keenly 
 towards the mango-grove under the rim of 
 his helmet, yet without seeming to look. 
 Now and then he glanced up towards the 
 village, with its reed-thatched huts and 
 banana gardens. He went slower and 
 slower. All at once he moved almost im- 
 perceptibly in the saddle, and turned the 
 hunting-crop over in his hand. He had 
 seen what he was waiting for. 
 78
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 Kela Bai was coming from the village 
 with that quick, deerlike step he knew so 
 well; but one thing he could not make 
 out : she was dressed all in white, and wore 
 no jewellery at all, not even a nose-ring or 
 an anklet. Now the custom of caste or- 
 dained that Kela Bai should wear a Sari 
 with a broad border of red, while her own 
 taste led her to be profuse in ornament. 
 Therefore her white robe could mean only 
 one thing: that she had broken caste to 
 become a devotee; had entered that great 
 convent of immemorial India, whose roof 
 is the blue firmament, and its walls the 
 everlasting hills. 
 
 That was why the Collector had started, 
 and nervously shifted his riding-crop. He 
 had been trying to keep Kela Bai's life 
 and her person separate, with a certain re- 
 pugnance which he hardly acknowledged 
 even to himself. And now Kela Bai had 
 stepped clean out of her old life, shaking- 
 it off as the chick shakes off the shell. 
 "What she had done was, outwardly at 
 least, an act of religion; yet her impulse 
 79
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 was not religious. It was an outburst of 
 the will towards freedom, and a longing 
 for wide horizons, that had come into 
 her heart the night before as she sat at the 
 Collector's knee. He rightly divined that 
 she intended to join a band of pilgrims 
 who were passing down the Nawab's road 
 that afternoon. Though under summons 
 to appear, on a grave charge, with all the 
 evidence against her, she seemed as sure 
 of her liberty as though she were already 
 acquitted. So confident was she in her 
 new friend's power and goodwill. 
 
 They were close to each other by this 
 time, and each felt a great curiosity to see 
 the other in full daylight. Kela Bai 
 smiled up in the Collector's face, with a 
 warm, sunny smile. She was wholly free 
 from self-consciousness, and nothing about 
 her suggested a religious vocation. She 
 was rather the aboriginal life of nature, 
 like the gay sunshine, or the rippling river. 
 
 The Collector looked down at her, from 
 under his grey brows, with a certain self- 
 consciousness, yet pleased that she saw him 
 80
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 on horseback. Without knowing it, he 
 sat a little more erect, held his heels closer 
 in, and turned his toes straighter to the 
 front. Don Juan was stirring in him as 
 he watched that deerlike step of hers, and 
 the perfect suppleness and clean curves of 
 her body. He thought, for a moment, 
 how well she would look in the saddle. 
 
 But they only remained close together 
 for a single instant, just long enough for a 
 flash of recognition to pass. A hundred 
 eyes were on the Collector, all keen and 
 sharp as needles ; but no visible sign passed 
 between him and Kela Bai that any of 
 them could recognize. The long stride of 
 his Australian soon left her behind, and 
 walking him forward under the trees, the 
 Collector reached his tent and dismounted. 
 
 " 'Wish she could have seen me do a 
 gallop," he was thinking to himself. 
 " 'Wonder how soon she goes. Not a bad 
 idea to adjourn the case till to-morrow 
 for consultation. 'Wonder if she'd come 
 again. 'Would do it if it wasn't for that 
 swine of a Sub-Inspector. Damn his im- 
 81
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 pudence ! " This was small thanks for a 
 zealous public servant's efforts for order 
 and decency. 
 
 The orderly had been sitting in the ver- 
 anda of the tent, polishing the brass shield 
 on his shoulder-sash his badge of office. 
 He kept a furtive lookout under his brows 
 for possible petitioners, and at the same 
 time listened with a feeling of jealous sus- 
 picion to the movements of the butler 
 within the tent. 
 
 Echoes of a noisy dispute came from the 
 servants' quarters. A loaf of bread was 
 missing a serious matter in camp. The 
 cook accused the butler of stealing it. The 
 butler said a jackal had taken it, which hap- 
 pened to be true. But the cook sneered: 
 
 " A jackal eat bread ? " 
 
 "A jackal will eat anything," retorted 
 the angry butler, "even the flesh of a 
 cook." 
 
 The orderly grinned, and rose softly, as 
 
 he saw the Sahib coming. He would not 
 
 give the others warning, because he hoped 
 
 the dispute, dragged to light, might bring 
 
 82
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 the butler a public wigging, and thus re- 
 store the balance of trade. But the groom 
 also saw, and uttered a guarded cry : 
 
 "Softly! Softly! The Sahib is com 
 ing! " And everything suddenly grew de- 
 corous and still. The orderly was stand- 
 ing at attention before the veranda, and 
 the groom was waiting sedately for the 
 great man's horse. 
 
 The Sub-Inspector and his satellites 
 made a move from the mango-tree under 
 which they were standing, but the Col- 
 lector ignored them completely. The Sub- 
 Inspector's jaw fell still lower, and his 
 nose rose still higher. He was losing 
 countenance. At this moment he noticed 
 Kela Bai approaching, recognizing her by 
 her walk, and would have gone to brow- 
 beat her, and even intimidate her with 
 blows, but that he felt the weight of the 
 Collector's presence heavy upon him. 
 Then he noticed the change in her Sari, 
 and at once grasped its significance, feel- 
 ing a malignant foreboding that the change 
 meant he would be foiled, and at the same
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 time a flash of that awe before a religious 
 devotee which was instinctive in his blood. 
 A sense of unreality was coming over him, 
 who had been so confident in the morn- 
 ing, and his mind was losing focus. He 
 therefore grew more haughty towards the 
 sergeant and the three constables, who, in 
 their turn, grew more subdued. 
 
 Kela Bai had followed at a distance, in 
 the Collector's wake. She now lingered a 
 while, and then sat down in a deep splash 
 of shadow beside a mango-tree, well within 
 sight of the tent-door, but as far as might 
 be from the Sub-Inspector. There was a 
 shining in her face that seemed to come 
 through the light-brown skin, and made it 
 gleam like gold. She felt a freedom and 
 lightness in all her body, and she was 
 humming a Bengali love-song to herself, 
 with an upward tilt at the end of each 
 line. She was evidently weighed down by 
 neither repentance nor regret. She was 
 as evidently not held by the ascetic dream 
 of that great greyness into which all things 
 melt, as the sage grows one with the whole 
 84
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 world. On the contrary, she was throb- 
 bing through every nerve with her new- 
 found freedom, and was still dazed with 
 the brightness and strangeness of it all. 
 Like a snake that has sloughed its old 
 covering, she had come forth gleaming 
 and new-born, yet with a certain dreami- 
 ness which would linger in her eyes for 
 days. She forgot, after a minute or two, 
 why she had come to the camp, and was 
 busy chirruping to a grey squirrel with a 
 yellow back that sat watching her with 
 sly, bright eyes, on the lowest branch of 
 the nearest tree. The squirrel chattered 
 shrilly at Kela Bai, and Kela Bai chattered 
 back at the squirrel, and then laughed, 
 with that deep, mellow laugh of hers. She 
 did not know it, but the Collector was at 
 that moment watching her from the dark 
 cavern of his tent, smiling at her, and 
 wishing with all his heart that he could 
 dismiss them all except her and himself, 
 and that they could go bird's-nesting down 
 the river. The sight of her playing with 
 the squirrel stirred an idyllic chord in his 
 85
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 heart, and he remembered that he had 
 half-unconsciously noticed a kingfisher's 
 burrow in the river-bank, all white at the 
 entrance, and therefore new; and he sus- 
 pected an oriole's housekeeping, some- 
 where among the branches; also, there 
 was a vulture's awkward nest at the top 
 of the highest mango ; and immediately his 
 fancy raised the question : which of them 
 had best climb up to it? He laughed 
 softly to himself, and then he sighed. 
 
 Meanwhile Kela Bai had beguiled the 
 squirrel from the tree, and it was running 
 towards her, with little sideways darts, 
 sitting up to chatter at every yard. She 
 called to it, and held out her hand, her 
 big eyes gleaming. The squirrel came 
 closer, till it was within a foot of her. 
 Then she made a quick spring, and caught 
 it with both hands, laughing aloud in 
 pure delight. But her laughter suddenly 
 stopped, and she cast the ball of grey and 
 yellow fur away from her with a little cry 
 of pain. It had bitten her thumb. In- 
 stinctively the watching Collector put his 
 86
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 finger in his mouth. The Sub- Inspector 
 also saw her mishap, and laughed a rough, 
 nervous laugh. The Collector heard it. 
 
 "Time to cook that swine's goose," he 
 muttered to himself, with more force than 
 clearness. 
 
 He left the tent, looked about for a mo- 
 ment, and then turned quickly towards the 
 tree under which the Sub-Inspector and 
 his subordinates were sitting. They all 
 started to their feet with a rustle like a 
 covey of partridges, and fumbled awk- 
 wardly with, their belts. The leather 
 thongs galled them, and they never kept 
 them on except in the presence of Digni- 
 ties. The Collector strode close up to the 
 Sub-Inspector, and began to examine him 
 with a stony stare. The Sub-Inspector 
 grew confused, salaamed too vigorously, 
 and began to stammer. 
 
 The Collector abruptly interrupted him. 
 
 " I was not aware that I asked you to sit 
 down, Babu," he said, and then turned on 
 his heel, muttering: "Damn his impud- 
 ence!" quite loud enough for the Sub- 
 87
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 Inspector to hear. He understood per- 
 fectly, and winced, trusting that the ser- 
 geant did not. The sergeant and three 
 constables cast down their eyes, thinking 
 that they would suffer for this later on. 
 
 The Collector returned to his tent, and 
 began to take off his riding things. Then 
 he let the air circle round his ribs for a 
 few seconds, thinking that he had not such 
 a bad figure, after all; and then, entering 
 the bath-room tent, he sluiced cold water 
 over himself, from a red earthen jar. He 
 did it a second and a third time, feeling 
 the cool stream running down his back, 
 and deriving great comfort and freshness 
 therefrom. Then he shook himself, so 
 that the drops scattered against the can- 
 vas, and rubbing himself with a rough 
 towel, began to dress. He chose a suit of 
 yellow jungle silk, as an unconscious ap- 
 peal to Kela Bai's good taste. As he 
 dressed, he could see her sitting under her 
 tree, her head tilted back, sucking her 
 thumb, and looking upwards. He went 
 forward to the door, to see what she was 
 88
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 watching. It was a big red and green 
 woodpecker, in the tree above her, plying 
 his bill from side to side at a bald patch 
 on the tree, from which the chips fell on 
 her shoulder, and this had evidently at- 
 tracted her attention. A corner of the 
 mantle of sympathy with all wild things 
 was falling on her, since she had found 
 her freedom, and this industrious bird in- 
 terested her hugely. 
 
 The Collector wondered whether she had 
 seen him snub her foe, and thought how 
 he should like to have her share his curry. 
 He even argued to himself that, as a de- 
 votee has no caste, she could receive food 
 from all castes alike, even from the high- 
 est and most exclusive of all, the Caste of 
 Bengal Civilian. He felt a great desire to 
 ask her questions, to renew the intimacy 
 of the night before; an innocent wish to 
 have her admire his authority, and a half- 
 conscious willingness to rub from her 
 memory certain moments of their first 
 meeting. But the slightest recognition 
 would mean open scandal. Once more 
 89
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 he muttered: "Damn his impudence!" 
 and glanced sideways towards the Sub-In- 
 spector, who was shifting uneasily from 
 one foot to the other, and glaring at Kela 
 Bai, comfortably sitting in full view, while 
 he, a high official, was compelled to stand. 
 The Collector considered whether he could 
 have the other table placed so as to push 
 the high official into the sun, which was al- 
 ready growing hot, at the same time keep- 
 ing himself and the defendant in the shade. 
 
 "Move that table over there," he said 
 to the orderly, rising from his breakfast, 
 and pointing to another spot, where the 
 Sub-Inspector, standing on his right, 
 would get the full benefit of the heat, 
 while oppressed innocence would fight in 
 the shade. 
 
 "Like Leonidas at Thermopylae" he 
 said to himself. Then he opened the de- 
 spatch-box, in which the rupees Kela Bai 
 had counted were still swimming among 
 the papers, and drew forth the file of her 
 case. Then he said : 
 
 " Call the Sub-Inspector." 
 90
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 The orderly grinned behind his hand, 
 noticing the unceremonious form, and 
 knowing that it must be intentional. The 
 Collector was no newly joined Assistant, 
 to trip over grammatical refinements. The 
 orderly went swaggering over to the tree, 
 where the Sub-Inspector was still dancing 
 the crane's dance, and delivered the mes- 
 sage with a smirk and a shrug, which in- 
 terpreted in gesture the abruptness of the 
 Collector's words. With the file of the 
 case the Collector had taken out a review 
 of new novels, which seemed to interest 
 him greatly; for when the Sub-Inspector 
 came over, and stood salaaming beside 
 him, full of awkward misgiving, he did 
 not even glance up. Lookers-on were be- 
 ginning to notice and comment in whispers. 
 The Sub-Inspector saw this, and it doubled 
 his pains. 
 
 "Orderly, call the first case," said the 
 Collector, without looking up: " Behari 
 Babu versus Kela Bai." 
 
 " The Empress versus Kela Bai," in- 
 voluntarily corrected the Sub-Inspector. 
 91
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 The Collector looked up sharply. 
 
 "Did you speak, Babu?" he asked 
 stiffly. 
 
 "No, your worship," said the Babu. 
 
 The case was called, and a motley throng 
 gathered round the Collector's table : clerks 
 of the subdivisional court, witnesses, par- 
 ties in other cases, two or three fat lawyers, 
 and the sergeant and three constables. The 
 indictment against Kela Bai was a formid- 
 able one ; and the witnesses knew their 
 story perfectly. They had been rehears- 
 ing it under a tree while the Collector was 
 out for his ride. Kela Bai also came up, 
 leisurely, dreamily, as if the matter hardly 
 concerned her. 
 
 Meanwhile the Collector had been coldly 
 examining the crowd, and as coldly ignor- 
 ing the Sub-Inspector. He was slowly 
 transforming himself from a man into a 
 Court, and everyone felt the change, even 
 Kela Bai. A solemnity and constraint fell 
 upon them all, changing the aisled grove 
 into a hall with many arches, and all whis- 
 pers ceased. The Sub- Inspector rallied for
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 a moment in that familiar atmosphere, 
 which only men of law can freely breathe, 
 but only for a moment, for the Collector 
 turned sharp upon him. 
 
 " Where is the Day Book ? " he asked, 
 with the air of an executioner. 
 
 The Sub-Iuspector started, changed col- 
 our, and began to stammer. 
 
 "Babu, I have told you three times to 
 bring the Day Book. I must always see 
 the first entry of a case like this." 
 
 The Sub-Inspector was so wrought up 
 by this time that he clearly recollected 
 this order which had never been given. 
 He said something in a half -whisper to one 
 of his constables, who was off at a trot 
 on the instant. 
 
 " What are you sending that man for ? " 
 asked the Collector, with a stare of sur- 
 prise. 
 
 "For the Day Book your wor- 
 ship!" The Collector gazed at him for 
 twenty seconds, rather in sorrow than in 
 anger. 
 
 " Babu," he said, " I thought you knew
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 that the Day Book should always remain 
 in charge of the Sub-Inspector." 
 
 " Shall I bring it myself, your wor- 
 ship? " asked the Babu, almost in tears. 
 
 " Naturally," answered the Collector 
 drily. 
 
 The Sub-Inspector started at a trot after 
 the receding figure of the constable, a lean 
 man, with a long start. It was more than 
 a mile to the office, and just beyond the 
 grove, a half-mile of white road lay shim- 
 mering in the heat, before the first shelter 
 of the village was reached. And everyone 
 was looking on. The Sub-Inspector's 
 heart died within him, at the thought of 
 racing through that dust and heat in his 
 heavy uniform jacket and galling belt. It 
 was physical torture, in addition to his 
 mental woe. The Collector watched his 
 limping run for a moment, and then looked 
 down suddenly at his book-reviews. Kela 
 Bai was smiling, and he feared to catch 
 her eye. He was a Court now, and must 
 not smile ; and her saintship was too rec- 
 ent for him to acknowledge the acquaint- 
 94
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 ance. He looked up again in a moment. 
 The Sub-Inspector was about half-way 
 across the hot zone, on his way to the vil- 
 lage, ploughing along in a cloud of dust. 
 
 "Orderly," said the Collector, "call 
 the Babu!" Once more he omitted the 
 complimentary form. 
 
 The orderly ran to the edge of the grove. 
 
 "Hey, Babu-u-u-u!" he. shrilled glee- 
 fully; and the victim broke his trot sud- 
 denly and looked back. 
 
 " Babu-u-u-u ! " cried the orderly again, 
 waving his arm. 
 
 The Sub-Inspector had to turn and come 
 panting back again. His throat was full 
 of dust, and there were tears in his eyes. 
 He came halting up to his sunny post at 
 the Collector's right everyone else being 
 in the shade and the Collector turned 
 sharp upon him. 
 
 "Babu," he said, "this is, without ex- 
 ception, the worst case that has ever come 
 before me! " 
 
 " Ye-yes, your worship! " answered the 
 Sub-Inspector, quite unconsciously. 
 95
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 "What do you mean, sir?" asked the 
 Collector sharply. 
 
 " Nothing, your worship," said the Babu 
 in a low voice. " I am suffering from the 
 heat." 
 
 The Collector completed his sentence. 
 
 " This case as you have revised it" 
 the Sub-Inspector winced " contains a 
 charge of instigation to do grievous bodily 
 harm. That, as you know, makes it a 
 warrant case." 
 
 "Yes, your worship!" assented the 
 Sub-Inspector, with more assurance. He 
 thought he was on firm ground here. 
 
 "Then why was no warrant issued?" 
 retorted the Collector instantly. 
 
 The Sub-Inspector saw that he had been 
 caught. Kela Bai had simply received a 
 summons. 
 
 " The prisoner is here in court, your 
 worship," he stammered. 
 
 " The defendant, you probably mean," 
 corrected the Collector. 
 
 " That is Kela Bai standing beside you," 
 murmured the Sub-Inspector, feeling more 
 96
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 confident, now that he was touching 
 fact. 
 
 Every one looked at Kela Bai, who, in 
 her turn, looked at the Collector. 
 
 He was looking straight into her eyes, 
 and only the faintest drooping of a lid, in- 
 visible to all but her, showed recognition. 
 She, on her part, was smiling openly, show- 
 ing her teeth. 
 
 The Collector scrutinized her judicially 
 for a full half-minute. Then he re-read 
 the statement of the case before him. 
 
 "This is a mistake," he said, very de- 
 cidedly. When the Court speaks in that 
 tone, the Court is never contradicted. 
 Then he turned to Kela Bai. He knew 
 that, with the white Sari, she must have 
 taken a new name, as do all devotees. 
 
 " What is your name ? " he asked, with 
 intention, and using the ceremonious form 
 he had shorn the Sub-Inspector of. Every 
 one noticed it, and stared ; the Sub-Inspec- 
 tor winced visibly. 
 
 " Moksha Bai," answered the 'defend- 
 ant ' with a smile. It was the first time 
 97
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 she had pronounced her new title, " Sister 
 Freedom." Her old friend in the temple 
 had chosen it for her, pinching her cheek, 
 and saying: "Nothing in the world is so 
 sweet as Moksha Bai." 
 
 The Collector was relieved. He had 
 feared for a moment she might forget, 
 and give her old name. 
 
 When she had spoken, he turned again 
 to the Sub-Inspector, with an expression 
 of grave disapproval. 
 
 "It was clear to me, Babu," he said, 
 speaking deliberately, " that this devotee 
 could not be ah the person described 
 in the complaint. That puts the coping- 
 stone on your case." 
 
 The Sub-Inspector flinched. He was a 
 fine English scholar, but had quite forgot- 
 ten the meaning of coping-stone. 
 
 "It is," resumed the Collector, "the 
 worst case, in both form and substance, 
 that has ever come before me. No Day 
 Book; a summons instead of a warrant; 
 and a devotee summoned instead of ah 
 the defendant." Fearing that Kela Bai
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 might laugh and betray him, if she under- 
 stood, he spoke in English. " Needless to 
 say, as far as this devotee is concerned, the 
 case is ended. She should never have come 
 here though I am heartily glad she did " 
 this last to himself ' ' but as far as you 
 are concerned, Babu, the case is only be- 
 ginning." Here he gave the Sub-Inspec- 
 tor a long stare, to help his words to soak 
 in. " It is quite clear that this is one of 
 those trumped-up cases, brought to avenge 
 a private spite." The Sub-Inspector 
 paled ; he was not accustomed to this clair- 
 voyance in his White Overlords. He cast 
 down his eyes, yet felt the general smile, 
 for every one knew the real origin of the 
 case, and the story of his slighted suit. 
 Kela Bai would assuredly have laughed, 
 but she was otherwise engaged. The stern 
 eye of the Court instantly repressed the 
 general smile, and he continued: 
 
 " Apparently a summons has been served 
 
 on this devotee. Under the Criminal 
 
 Procedure Code, as you well know, she is 
 
 entitled, if she so desires, to bring a coun- 
 
 99
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 ter-case against you, for 'frivolous and 
 vexatious prosecution ' ; " this last in Ben- 
 gali. The Collector turned to where Kela 
 Bai had been standing. 
 
 " The defendant is chasing a butterfly," 
 murmured the Brahman clerk, without 
 raising his eyes. Over him, as over all the 
 others, was beginning to creep that awe 
 which all Indian devotees inspire, and her 
 gay fearlessness greatly strengthened the 
 feeling. They were all ready to turn 
 against the Sub-Inspector, even his own 
 friends. 
 
 The Collector looked round in surprise. 
 It was quite true. Kela Bai was, in fact, 
 chasing a butterfly, a big fellow with blue 
 and yellow wings. She tripped over a root, 
 sat down suddenly, turned round, and saw 
 that she was the centre of all eyes. She 
 coloured under her brown skin, and stole 
 back slowly, very much abashed. The 
 Collector spoke to her. 
 
 " You are entitled, if you wish " then 
 he broke off. "You must show due re- 
 spect to this Court," he said severely, as 
 100
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 she looked back at the butterfly. "Yes, 
 you wusship!" she answered, imitating 
 the Babu's English quite unconsciously. 
 The Collector dropped his rebuke, and 
 went on: 
 
 " entitled to prosecute the Sub-In- 
 spector for malicious prosecution " 
 
 She interrupted him, with a gleam of 
 humour that surprised even him. 
 
 " One of the duties of a devotee," she 
 said, in her deep, rich voice, " is forgive- 
 ness of injury. I forgive the Babu freely 
 and from my heart." 
 
 " Babu," said the Collector, " you are a 
 lucky man." 
 
 The Sub-Inspector's feelings were too 
 deep for tears. 
 
 " The Court is now adjourned! " 
 
 Every one breathed a sigh of relief as 
 the judicial cloud lifted. The crowd began 
 to melt away, and disappeared. 
 
 " Babu, you had better take the sergeant 
 and your three constables and bring the 
 Day Book. As I said, for you the case is 
 only beginning." 
 
 101
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 That was not quite true. The Collector 
 never recurred to it; but, with fine malice, 
 let it hang over the Sub-Inspector till he 
 wasted away. For hours that afternoon 
 he hovered about the verge of the grove, 
 in deadly fear, expecting the sword to fall; 
 forgetting even to bully his subordinates, 
 who nevertheless moved in dread. Mean- 
 while, however, they all retreated to the 
 police station and collapsed. Their repu- 
 tation was gone, and there would be no 
 more bribes forever. They sucked their 
 hookahs steadily for an hour before they 
 moved again. This was what the Collec- 
 tor had counted on. He wanted the coast 
 clear for Kela Bai's departure. 
 
 " Orderly," he said next, " go and give 
 my salaams to the Deputy Magistrate, and 
 say that I wish to see him in two hours. 
 Stay with him, and bring him to the 
 camp." 
 
 " G-ot rid of that rascal," he said, half- 
 aloud, and then walked magisterially over 
 to the dinner-tent. 
 
 "KhodaBaksh!" he called. 
 102
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 The butler appeared instantly, answering: 
 
 "Your Excellency " 
 
 "While I was out riding this morning, 
 I saw some egg-plants about a mile down 
 the river; go and ask the owner of the 
 field to sell some." 
 
 He knew perfectly well that the butler 
 would simply impress the vegetables, and 
 never dream of paying; but that was quite 
 indifferent to his purpose. He next 
 marched over to the grooms. 
 
 " Take Prince and Justinian down the 
 river-bank for exercise," he said; " I shall 
 not ride this evening." 
 
 In five minutes the two grooms were 
 gone. The Collector watched them dis- 
 appear behind a green knoll by the river, 
 and then turned back towards his tent. 
 
 Kela Bai was still standing close to the 
 table. She had not moved since the scene 
 of the butterfly. But she was not alone. 
 Mani Bewa and Moti Bibi, who had been 
 lurking on the confines of the grove, were 
 there red-eyed, and with ashes in their 
 hair. They were whining piteously, and 
 103
 
 Kela Bai: 
 
 Kela Bai was watching them with far-away 
 eyes. Mani Bewa was carrying a perch on 
 a loop of wire. A fine green parrot, with 
 a blaze of scarlet on his crown, sat thereon. 
 It was Tota. As the Collector came up, 
 the far-away look left Kela Bai's eyes, and 
 they came to a focus on his face. Then 
 she turned towards Tota. 
 
 "I have brought you a present," she 
 said, unconsciously dropping all titles. 
 ' ' He is Tota, my son. He is a very good 
 boy " 
 
 "Go to Gehenna, son of a swine!" 
 from Tota, in a shrill, demoniac voice. 
 
 The Collector raised his eyebrows, and 
 looked quizzically at Kela Bai : " So I per- 
 ceive." 
 
 She was blushing deeper than she had 
 ever blushed in her life, and her neck and 
 face were a rich red bronze. 
 
 "You are my father!" she murmured 
 at last. Then a smile came into her eyes 
 as she thought of something: " And he is 
 my son. So he must be your grandson. 
 Therefore I hope you will train his morals; 
 104
 
 An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 perhaps give him a complete English educ- 
 ation like the Babu," here she laughed 
 outright. 
 
 " Go and hang the perch in the veranda 
 of the tent," he said to the old women. 
 They tottered off. 
 
 " So you have become a pilgrim, and are 
 going away ? " he asked in a graver tone. 
 
 " Yes, to join the pilgrims who pass by 
 the Nawab's road, or to Puri, to Benares, 
 perhaps to Hard war," and the far-away 
 look came into her eyes again. 
 
 "Well, dear child," said the Collector 
 at last, and at the ring of feeling in his 
 voice she started, and looked him full in 
 the face; " there is little I can do for you, 
 but I can at least heartily wish you all 
 good, and give you my blessing." 
 
 He laid his hand rather sadly on her 
 head, as if she had been a little child, and 
 her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She 
 caught his other hand, and would have 
 pressed it to her lips, but he prevented 
 her, holding her hand firmly for a mo- 
 ment. Then he said : 
 105
 
 Kela Bai: An Anglo-Indian Idyl 
 
 " Time to say good-bye, and set out, my 
 child; the way is clear at present, but may 
 not long be so. Don't forget that you 
 have enemies. And do not forget that 
 you have friends." 
 
 So they parted. She was sobbing softly. 
 The Collector watched her thread her way 
 among the trees, wondering rather wist- 
 fully whether he would ever see her again. 
 She passed out of the shadow into the 
 sunshine, entering a path that led across 
 the rice-fields to the Nawab's road, in the 
 opposite direction from the village. She 
 soon diminished to a white stroke on the 
 brown horizon. Twice she turned to look 
 back, though the Collector, standing in 
 deep shadow, was invisible. Then, as 
 the great shining world opened before her, 
 that India for ages infinitely reverent to all 
 pilgrims, her step grew more alert, and she 
 went gaily forward to the bright unknown. 
 
 The Collector turned on his heel : 
 
 "And now," he said, " to inventa story 
 for Khoda Baksh, as to how I came by her 
 precious son." 
 
 106
 
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