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 THE 
 
 FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS
 
 THE 
 
 FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 BY 
 
 FLORA ANNIE STEEL 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 iLont(on 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1894 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clakk, Edinbtcrgh.
 
 
 Y. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 N 
 
 
 V> 
 
 
 i 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ^ The Flower of Forgiveness . 
 ^r Harvest . ... 
 
 1 
 
 34 
 
 For the Faith 
 
 62 
 
 ^ The Bhut-Baby 
 
 . 115 
 
 Ramchunderji 
 
 . 152 
 
 Heera Xund . 
 
 . 178 
 
 .; Feroza ..... 
 
 199 
 
 
 i
 
 THE ELOWEE OF FOEGIVENESS 
 
 ' Surely this is very rare ? ' I remarked, as look- 
 ing through a herbarium of Himalayan plants 
 belonging to a friend of mine, I came upon a small 
 anemone which, contrary to the custom of that 
 most delicate of flowers, had preserved its colour 
 in all its first freshness. Indeed, the scarlet petals, 
 each bearing a distinct heart-shaped blotch of 
 white in the centre, could scarcely have glowed 
 more brilliantly in life than they did in 
 death. 
 
 ' Very rare,' returned the owner after a pause ; 
 ' I have reason to beheve it unique — so far as col- 
 lections go at any rate.' 
 
 ' I see you have called it Bemissionensis. AVhat. 
 induced you to give it such an odd name ? ' 
 
 VOL. I B
 
 2 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 He smiled. 'Dog Latin, I acknowledge. As 
 for the reason — can you not guess ? ' 
 
 'Well,' I replied, looking closer at the white 
 and red flowers, ' I have not your vivid imagma- 
 tion, but I presume it was in allusion to sins as 
 scarlet, and hearts white as wool. Ah ! it was 
 found, I see, near the Cave of Amar-nath; that 
 accounts for the connection of ideas.' 
 
 ' No doubt,' he said, quietly, ' that accounts for 
 the connection in a measure ; not entirely. The 
 fact is, a very odd story — the oddest story I ever 
 came into personally — is connected with that 
 flower. You remember Taylor, surgeon of the 101st, 
 who died of pyaemia contracted in some of his 
 cholera experiments ? AVell, just after I joined 
 we chummed together in Cashmere, where he was 
 making the herbarium at which you have been 
 looking. He was a most charming companion for 
 a youngster eager to understand something of a 
 new life, for, without exception, he knew more of 
 native thought and feeling than any other man I 
 ever met. He had a sort of intuition about it ;
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 3 
 
 yet at the same time he was curiously unsym- 
 pathetic, and seemed to look upon it merely as a 
 field for research, and nothing more. He used to 
 talk to every man he met on the road, and in this 
 way managed to acquire an extraordinary amount 
 of information utterly undreamed of by most 
 Englishmen. For instance, his first acquaintance 
 with the existence of this anemone grew out of a 
 chance conversation with an old rufiian besmeared 
 with filth from head to foot, and it was his con- 
 sequent desire to add the rarity to his collection, 
 joined to my fancy for seeing a real pilgrimage, 
 which brought us to Islamabad about the end of. 
 July, about the time, that is to say, of the annual 
 festival. 
 
 'The sacred spring where the pilgrimage is 
 inaugurated by a solemn feeding of the holy fish 
 is some way from the town, so we pitched our 
 tents under a plane-tree close to the temples, in 
 order to see the whole show. And a queer show 
 it was. Brummagem umbrellas stuck like mush- 
 rooms over green stretches of grass, and giving
 
 4 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 shelter to a motley crew; jogis, or wandering 
 mendicants, meditating on the mystic word Om, 
 and thereafter lighting sacred fires with Swedish 
 tdndstickors ; Government clerks, bereft of rai- 
 ment, forgetting reports and averages in a return 
 to primitive humanity. Taylor never tired of 
 pointing out these strange contrasts, and over his 
 evening pipe read me many a long lecture on the 
 putting of new wine into old bottles. For myself, 
 it interested me immensely. I liked to think of 
 the young men and maidens, the weary workers, 
 and the hoary old sinners, all journeying in faith, 
 hope, and charity (or the want of it) to the Cave 
 of Amar-nath in order to get the Great Ledger of 
 Life settled up to date, and so to return scot-free 
 to the world, the flesh, and the devil, in order to 
 begin the old round all over again. I liked to 
 think that crime sufficient to drag half Hindostan 
 to the nethermost pit had been made over to those 
 white gypsum cliffs, and that still, summer after 
 summer, the wind flowers sprang from the cran- 
 nies, and the forget-me-nots with their message of
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 5 
 
 warning came to carpet the way for those eager 
 feet seeking the impossible. I liked to see all the 
 strange perversities and pieties displayed by the 
 jogis and gosains. It was from one of the latter, 
 a horrid old ruffian (so ridiculously like II Re 
 Galant \imiio, that we nicknamed him Victor 
 Emanuel on the spot), that Taylor had first heard 
 of the Flower of Forgiveness as the man styled it. 
 He and the doctor grew quite hot over the possible 
 remission of sins ; but the subsequent gift of one 
 rupee sterKng sent him away asseverating that 
 none could filch from him the first-fruits of pil- 
 grimage — namely, the opportunity of meeting a 
 Protector of the Poor so virtuous, so generous, so 
 full of the hoarded wisdom of ages. I recognised 
 the old humbug in the crowd as we made our 
 way to a sort of latticed gallery belonging to the 
 Maharajah's guest-house, which gave on the tank 
 where the fish are fed. He salaamed profoundly, 
 and, with a grin, expressed his delight that, after 
 all, the great doctor saliih should be seeking for- 
 giveness.
 
 6 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 ' " I seek the flower only, Pious One," replied 
 Taylor with a shrug of the shoulders. 
 
 ' " Perhaps 'tis the same thing," replied Victor 
 Emanuel with another salaam. 
 
 'The square tank was edged by humanity in 
 the white and saffron robes of pilgrimage. Brim- 
 ming up to the stone step, worn smooth by genera- 
 tions of sinners, the waters of the spring lapped 
 lazily, stirred by the myriads of small fish which 
 in their eagerness for the coming feast flashed 
 hither and thither like meteors, to gather in radiat- 
 ing stars round the least speck on the surface ; 
 sometimes in their haste rising in scaly mounds 
 above the water. The blare of a conch and a 
 clanging of discordant bells made all eyes turn to 
 the platform in front of the temple, where the 
 attendant Brahmans stood with high -heaped 
 baskets of grain awaiting the sacrificial words about 
 to be spoken by an old man, who, with one foot on 
 the bank, spread his arms skywards, — an old man 
 of insignificant height, but with an indescribable 
 dignity, on which I remarked to my companion.
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 7 
 
 ' " It is indescribable," he assented, " because it 
 is compounded of factors not only wide as the 
 poles asunder from you and me, but also from each 
 other. Pride of twice-born trebly-distilled ances- 
 try bringing a conviction of inherited worthiness ; 
 pride in hardly-acquired devotion giving birth to 
 a sense of personal frailty. That is the Brahman 
 whom we lump into a third-class railway carriage 
 with the ruck of humanity, and then wonder — 
 hush ! he is going to begin." 
 
 ' " Thou art Light ! Thou art Immortal Life ! " 
 The voice, with a tremor of emotion in it, pierced 
 the stillness for a second before it was shattered 
 by a hoarse strident cry — " Silence ! " 
 
 'Taylor leaned forward, suddenly interested. 
 " You're in luck," he whispered, " I believe there is 
 going to be a row of some sort.' 
 
 ' Once more the cry rose harsher than before : 
 " Silence, Sukya I Thou art impure." 
 
 ' A stir in the crowd, and a visible straighten- 
 ing of the old man's back were the only 
 results.
 
 8 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 '''Thou art the Holiest Sacrifice! We adore 
 Thee, adorable Siin ! " 
 
 ' " Silence ! " 
 
 'This time the interruption took shape in a 
 jogi, who, forcing his way through the dense ranks, 
 emerged on the platform to stand pointing with 
 denunciatory finger at the old Brahman. Naked, 
 save for the cable of grass round his loins and the 
 smearing of white ashes, with hair lime-bleached 
 and plaited with hemp into a sort of chignon, no 
 more ghastly figure could be conceived. The 
 crowd, however, hailed him with evident respect, 
 while a murmur of " Gopi ! 'tis Gopi the hiksJm 
 (religious beggar) " passed from mouth to mouth. 
 This reception seemed to rouse the old man's 
 wrath, for after one scornful glance at the new- 
 comer he was about to continue his invocation to 
 the sun, when the jogi, striding forward, flourished 
 his mendicant's staff so close to the other's face 
 that he perforce fell back. 
 
 'Before the crowd had grasped the deadly 
 earnest of the scene, a lad of about sixteen, clad
 
 THE FLOWEE OF FORGIVENESS 9 
 
 in the black antelope skin which marks a religious 
 disciple, had leaped quivering with rage between 
 the old man and his assailant. 
 
 '"By George," muttered Taylor, "what a 
 splendid young fellow ! " 
 
 'He was indeed. Extraordinarily fair, even 
 for the fairest race in India, he might have served 
 as model for a young Perseus as he stood 
 there, the antelope skin falling from his right 
 shoulder lea\T.ng the sacred cord of the Brahman 
 visible on his left, while his smooth round limbs 
 showed in all theii' naked, ^^gorous young 
 beauty. 
 
 ' " Stand off, Amra ! who bade thee interfere ? " 
 cried the old man sternly. The bond between 
 them was manifest by the alacrity with which the 
 boy obeyed the command: for to the spiritual 
 master implicit obedience is due. At the same 
 moment the chief priest of the shrine, alarmed at 
 an incident which might interfere with the 
 expected almsgiving, hurried forward. Luckily 
 the crowd kept the silence which characterises
 
 10 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 gregarious humanity in the East, so we could 
 follow what was said. 
 
 ' " Wilt remove yonder drunken fanatic, or shall 
 the worship of the Shining Ones be profaned ? " 
 asked the old Brahman savagely; and at a sign 
 from their chief the attendants stepped forward. 
 
 ' But the jogi facing the crowd, appealed direct 
 to that fear of defilement which haunts the 
 Hindu's heart. " Impure ! Impure ! Touch him 
 not ! Hear him not ! Look not on him ! " The 
 vast concourse swayed and stirred, as with a con- 
 fident air the jogi turned to the chief priest. 
 "These twelve years agone, O mohunt-ji'^ thou 
 knowest Gopi — Gopi the hiJcshii / since for twelve 
 years I have been led hither by the Spirit, seeking 
 speech, and finding silence 1 But now speech is 
 given by the same Spirit. That man, Sukya, 
 anchorite of Setanagar, is unclean, false to his 
 race, to his vows, to the Shining Ones ! I, Gopi 
 the bikshu, will prove it." 
 
 ' Once again a murmur rose like the wind pre- 
 
 ^ Head of a religious community.
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 11 
 
 saging a storm, and as the crowd surged closer to 
 the temple a young girl in the saffron drapery of 
 a pilgrim, took advantage of the movement to 
 make her way to the platform with the evident 
 intention of pressing to the old man's side ; but 
 she was arrested by the young Perseus, who with 
 firm hands clasping hers, whispered something in 
 her ear. She smiled up at him, and so they stood 
 hand in hand, eager but confident, as the Brahman's 
 voice, clear with certainty, dominated the confusion. 
 
 ' " Ay 1 Prove it ! Prove that I, Sukya, taught 
 of the great Swami, twice-born Brahman, faithful 
 disciple, blameless householder, and pious anchorite 
 in due turn as the faith demands, have failed once 
 in the law without repentance and atonement ! 
 Lo ! I swear by the Shining Ones that I stand 
 before ye to-day body and soul holy to the utter- 
 most." 
 
 • " God gie us a gude conceit o' oursels," muttered 
 Taylor. 
 
 ' The remark jarred on me painfully, for the 
 spiritual exaltation in the man's face had no-
 
 12 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 thing personal in it, nothing more selhsh than the 
 rapt confidence which glorified the young disciple's 
 whole bearing as he gazed on his master with the 
 sort of blind adoration one sees in the eyes of a dog. 
 
 '"Think! I am Sukya!" went on the high- 
 pitched voice. " Would Sukya come between his 
 brethren and the Shining Ones ? I, chosen for 
 the oblation by reason of virtue and learning ; I, 
 Sukya, journeying to holy Amar-nath not for my 
 own sake — for I fear no judgment — but for the 
 sake of the disciple, yonder boy Amra, betrothed 
 to the daughter of my daughter, and vowed to the 
 pilgrimage from birth." 
 
 'A yell of crackling laughter came from the 
 jogi as he leapt to the bastion of the bathing-place, 
 and so, raised within sight of all, struck an attitude 
 of indignant appeal. "When was an outcast 
 vowed to pilgrimage ? And by my jogi's vow I 
 swear the boy Amra, disciple of Sukya, to be an 
 outcast. A Sudra of Sudras ! seeing that his 
 mother, being twice-born, defiled her race with 
 scum from beyond the seas."
 
 THE FLOWER OF FOKGIVEXESS 13 
 
 ' " By George ! " muttered Taylor again, " this 
 is getting lively — for the sciun." 
 
 '"Perhaps the Presence is becoming tired of 
 this vulgar scene," suggested an obsequious chup- 
 rassi, who had been devoted to our service by 
 order of the Cashmere officials ; but the Presences 
 were deeply interested. For all that I should not 
 care to witness such a sight again. The attention 
 of the crowd, centred a moment before on the jogi, 
 was turned now on the boy, who stood absolutely 
 alone ; the girl, moved by the unreasoning habit 
 of race, having dropped his hand at the first 
 word and crept to her grandfather's side. I can 
 see that young face still, awful in its terror, piteous 
 in its entreaty. 
 
 ' " Thou liest, Gopi ! " cried the Brahman gasp- 
 ing with passion ; and at the words a gleam of 
 hope crept to those hunted eyes. " Prove it, I 
 say; for I appeal to the Shining Ones whom I 
 have served." 
 
 ' " I accept the challenge," yelled the jogi with 
 frantic gestures, while a perfect roar of assent,
 
 14 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 cries of devotion, and prayers for guidance, rose 
 from the crowd. 
 
 'Taylor looked round at me quickly. "You 
 are in luck. There is going to be a miracle. I 
 saw that Gopi at Hurdwar once ; he is a rare hand 
 at them." He must have understood my resent- 
 ment at being thus recalled to the nineteenth 
 century, for he added half to himself, " 'Tis tragedy 
 for all that, — to the boy." 
 
 ' An appeal for silence enabled us to hear that 
 both parties had agreed to refer the question of 
 birth to the sacred cord, with which every male 
 of the three twice-born castes is invested. If the 
 strands were of the pure cotton ordained by ritual 
 to the Brahman, the boy should be held of pure 
 blood ; but the admixture of anything pointing to 
 the despised Sudra would make him anathema 
 maranatha, and render his master impure, and 
 therefore unfit to lead the devotions of others. 
 
 ' I cannot attempt to describe the scene which 
 followed ; for even now, the confusion inseparable 
 from finding yourself in surroundings which requii'e
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 15 
 
 explanation before they can fall into their appointed 
 place in the picture, prevents me from remember- 
 ing anything in detail, — anything but a surging 
 sea of saffron and white, a babel of wild cries, 
 " Hum ! Gunga-ji ! Dlmrm ! Dliurm ! " (Hurri ! ^ 
 Ganges! the Faith! the Faith!) Then suddenly 
 a roar, — " Gopi ! a miracle ! a miracle ' Praise be 
 to the Shining Ones \ " 
 
 ' It seemed but a moment ere the enthusiastic 
 crowd had swept the jogi from his pedestal, and, 
 crowned with jasmin chaplets, he was being borne 
 high on men's shoulders to make a round of the 
 various temples ; while the keepers of the shrine 
 swelledthetumultjudiciously by criesof " Oblations ! 
 offerings ! The Shining Ones are present to-day ! " 
 
 ' In my excitement at the scene itself I had for- 
 gotten its cause, and was regretting the all too 
 sudden ending of the spectacle, when Taylor 
 touched me on the arm. "The tragedy is about 
 to begin ! Look ! " 
 
 ' Following his eyes I saw, indeed, tragedy 
 
 ^ Name of Visliim.
 
 16 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 enough to make me forget what had gone before ; 
 yet I knew well that I did not, could not, fathom 
 its depth or measure its breadth. Still, in a dim 
 way I realised that the boy, standing as if turned 
 to stone, had passed in those few moments from 
 life as surely as if a physical death had struck 
 him down ; that he might indeed have been less 
 forlorn had such been the case, since some one for 
 their own sakes might then have given him six 
 feet of earth. And now, even a cup of water, 
 that last refuge of cold charity, was denied to him 
 for ever, save from hands whose touch was to his 
 Brahmanised soul worse than death. For him 
 there was no future. For the old man who, 
 burdened by the weeping girl, stood opposite him, 
 there was no past. Nothing but a hell of defile- 
 ment ; of daily, hourly impurity for twelve long 
 years. The thought was damnation. 
 
 ' " Come, Premi ! come ! " he muttered, turning 
 suddenly to leave the platform. " This is no place 
 for us now. Quick ! we must cleanse ourselves 
 from deadly sin, — from deadly, deadly sin."
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 17 
 
 ' They had reached the steps leading down to 
 the tank when the boy, with a sob like that of a 
 wounded animal, flung himself in agonized entreaty 
 at his master's feet. " Oh, cleanse me, even me 
 also, my father 1 " 
 
 ' The old man shrank back instinctively : yet 
 there was no anger, only a merciless decision in 
 his face. " Ask not the impossible ! Thou art 
 not alone impure : thou art uncleansable from 
 birth, — yea! for ever and ever. Come, Premi, 
 come, my child." 
 
 ' I shall never forget the cry which echoed over 
 the water, startling the pigeons from their evening 
 rest amid the encircHng trees. " Uncleansable for 
 ever and ever ! " Then in wild appeal from earth 
 to heaven he threw his arms skyward. " Oh, 
 Shining Ones ! say I am the same Amra, the 
 twice-born Amra, thy servant ! " 
 
 ' " Peace ! blasphemer ! " interrupted the Brah- 
 man sternly. "There are no Shining Ones for 
 such as thou. Go ! lest they strike thee dead in 
 
 wrath." 
 
 VOL. I c
 
 18 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 ' A momentary glimpse of a young face dis- 
 traught by despair, of an old one firm in repudia- 
 tion, and the platform lay empty of the passions 
 which had played their parts on it as on a stage. 
 Only from the distance came the discordant 
 triumph of the jogis procession. 
 
 ' I besieged Taylor's superior knowledge by 
 vain questions, to most of which he shook his 
 head. " How can I tell ? " he said somewhat 
 fretfully. " The cord was manipulated in some 
 way, of course. For all that, there may be truth 
 in Gopi's story. There is generally the devil to 
 pay if a Brahmani goes wrong, and she may have 
 tried to save the boy's life by getting rid of him. 
 If you want to know more, I'll send for Victor 
 Emanuel. Five rupees will fetch some slight 
 fraction of truth from the bottom of his well, and 
 that, as a rule, is all we aliens can expect in these 
 incidents." 
 
 ' So the old ruffian came and sat ostentatiously 
 far from our contaminating influences in the 
 attitude of a bronze Buddha, his moustaches
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 19 
 
 curled to his eyebrows, his large lips wreathed in 
 solemn smiles. " It was a truly divine miracle," 
 he said, blandly. " Gopi, the hikshu, never makes 
 mistakes, and performs neatly. Did the Presence 
 observe how neatly ? Within the cotton marking 
 the Brahman came the hempen thread of the 
 Kshatriya, inside again the woollen strand of the 
 Vaisya; all three twice-born. But last of all, 
 a strip of cow-skin defiling the whole." 
 
 ' " ^^Tiy cow-skin ? " I asked in my ignorance. 
 '' I always thought you held a cow sacred." 
 
 * Victor Emanuel beamed approval. " The little 
 Presence is young, but intelligent. He will doubt- 
 less learn much if he questions the right people 
 judiciously. He will grow wise like the big 
 Presence, who knows nearly as much as we know 
 about some things, — hut not all! The cow is 
 sacred, so the skin telling of the misfortune of the 
 cow is anathema. Yea, 'twas a divine miracle. 
 The money of the pious will flow to make the 
 holy fat ; at least that is what the doctor saliih is 
 thinking."
 
 20 THE FLOWEE OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 ' " Don't set up for occult power on the strength 
 of guessing palpable truths/' replied Taylor ; " that 
 sort of thing does not amuse me ; but the little 
 saJiih wants to know how much truth there was 
 in Gopi's story." 
 
 ' " Gopi knows," retorted our friend with a grin. 
 " The Brahman saith the boy was gifted to him by 
 a pious woman after the custom of thanksgiving. 
 Gone five years old, wearing the sacred thread, 
 versed in simple lore, intelligent, well -formed, as 
 the ritual demands. Gopi saith the mother, his 
 wife, was a bad walker even to the length of public 
 bazaars. Her people sought her for years, but she 
 escaped them in big towns, and ere they found 
 her she had gained safety for this boy by palming 
 him off' on Sukya. 'Twas easy for her, being a 
 Brahmani. Of course they made her speak some- 
 what ere she fulfilled her life, but not the name of 
 the anchorite she deceived. So Gopi, knowing 
 from the mother's babbling of this mongrel's 
 blasphemous name, and the vow of pilgrimage for 
 the expiation of sins, hath come hither, led by the
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 21 
 
 Spirit, every year. It is a tale of great virtue and 
 edification." 
 
 ' " But the boy ! the wretched boy ? " I asked 
 eagerly. Taylor raised his eyebrows and watched 
 my reception of thejogi's answer with a half-pity- 
 ing smile. 
 
 ' " Perhaps he will die ; perhaps not. What 
 does it matter? One born of such parents is 
 dead to \TTtue from the beginning, and life with- 
 out virtue is not life." 
 
 '" He might try Amar-nath and the remission 
 of sins you believe in so firmly," remarked Taylor, 
 with another look at me. 
 
 ' Victor Emanuel spat freely. " There is no 
 Amar-nath for such as he, and the Presence 
 knows that as well as I do. Xo remission at all, 
 even if he found the Flower of Forgiveness, as the 
 doctor sahib hopes to do." 
 
 ' " Upon my soul," retorted Taylor impatiently, 
 " I believe the existence of the one is about as 
 credible as the other. I shall have to swallow 
 both if I chance upon either."
 
 22 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 ' " That may be ; but not for the boy Amra. 
 He will die and be damned in due course." 
 
 ' That seemed to settle the question for others, 
 but I was haunted by the boy's look when he 
 heard the words, " Thou art uncleansable for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 * " After all 'tis only a concentrated form of the 
 feeling we all have at times," remarked Taylor 
 drily ; " even I should like to do away with a 
 portion of my past. Besides, all religions claim 
 more or less a monopoly of repentance. They are 
 no worse here than at home." 
 
 ' We journeyed slowly to Amar-nath, watching 
 the pilgrims pass us by on the road, but catching 
 them up again each evening after long rambles 
 over the hills in search of rare plants. It is 
 three days' march, by rights, to Shisha ISTag, 
 or the Leaden Lake where the pilgrimage 
 begins in real earnest by the pilgrims, men, 
 women, and children, divesting themselves of 
 every stitch of raiment, and journeying stark 
 naked through the snow and ice for two days —
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 23 
 
 coming back, of course, clothed with righteousness. 
 But, Taylor becoming interested over fungi in the 
 chestnut woods of Chandanwarra, we paused 
 there to hunt up all sorts of deathly-looking 
 growths due to disease and decay. I was not 
 sorry ; for one pilgrim possessed by frantic haste 
 to shift his sins to some scapegoat is very much 
 like another pilgrim with the same desire ; be- 
 sides, I grew tired of Victor Emanuel, who felt the 
 cold extremely, and was in consequence seldom 
 sober, and extremely loquacious. I thought I had 
 never seen such a dreary place as Shisha Nag, 
 though the sun shone brilliantly on its cliffs and 
 glaciers. I think it must have been the irrespon- 
 siveness of the lake itself which deadened its 
 beauties, for the water, surcharged with gypsum, 
 lay in pale green stretches, refusing a single reflec- 
 tion of the hills which held it so carefully. 
 
 ' The next march was awful ; and in more than 
 one place, half hidden by the flowers forcing their 
 way through the snow, lay the corpses of pilgrims 
 who had succumbed to the cold and the exposure.
 
 24 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 ' " Pneumonia in five out of six cases," remarked 
 Taylor casually. " If it were not for the churrus 
 (concoction of hemp) they drink the mortality 
 would be fearful. I wonder what Exeter Hall 
 would say to getting drunk for purposes of devo- 
 tion ? " 
 
 'At Punjtarni we met the returning pilgrims: 
 among others Victor, very sick and sorry for him- 
 self physically, but of intolerable moral strength. 
 He told us, between the intervals of petitions foi- 
 pills and potions, that the remaining fourteen 
 miles to the Cave were unusually difficult, and 
 had been singularly fatal that year. On hearing 
 this, Taylor, knowing my dislike to horrors, pro- 
 posed taking a path across the hills instead of 
 keeping to the orthodox route. Owing to scarcity 
 of water and fuel the servants and tents could 
 only go some five miles farther along the ravine, 
 so this suggestion would involve no change of 
 plan. He added that there would also be a greater 
 chance of finding " that blessed anemone." I don't 
 think I ever saw so much drunkenness or so much
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 25 
 
 devotion as I saw that evening at Punjtarni. It 
 was hard indeed to tell where the one began and 
 the other ended ; for excitement, danger, and 
 privation lent their aid to drugs, and a sense of 
 relief to both. The very cliffs and glaciers re- 
 sounded with enthusiasm, and I saw Sukya and 
 Premi taking their part with the rest as if nothing 
 had happened. 
 
 'Taylor and I started alone next morning. 
 We were to make a long round in search of the 
 Flower of Forgiveness, and came back upon the 
 Cave towards afternoon. The path, if path it 
 could be called, was fearful, Taylor, however, was 
 untiring, and at the slightest hint of hope would 
 strike off' up the most break-neck places, leaving 
 me to rejoin him as best I could. Yet not a 
 trace did we find of the anemone. Taylor gTcw 
 fretful, and when we reached the snow-slope lead- 
 ing to the Cave, he declared it would be sheer 
 waste of time for him to go up. 
 
 ' " Get rid of your sins, if you want to, by all 
 means," he said ; " I've seen photographs of the
 
 26 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 place, and it's a wretched imposture even as a 
 spectacle. You have only to keep up the snow 
 for a mile and turn to the left. You'll find me 
 somewhere about these cliffs on your return ; and 
 don't be long, for the going before us is difficult." 
 So I left him poking into every crack and cranny. 
 ' I could scarcely make up my mind if I was 
 impressed or disappointed with the Cave. Its 
 extreme insignificance was, it is true, almost 
 ludicrous. Save for a patch of red paint and a 
 shockingly bad attempt at a stone image of Siva's 
 bull, there was nothing to distinguish this hollow 
 in the rock from a thousand similar ones all over 
 the Himalayas. But this very insignificance gave 
 mystery to the fact that hundreds of thousands 
 of the conscience-stricken had found consolation 
 here. " What went ye out into the wilderness to 
 see ? " As I stood for an instant at the entrance 
 before retracing my steps, I could not but think 
 that here was a wilderness indeed — a wilderness 
 of treacherous snow and ice-bound rivers peaked 
 and piled up tumultuously like frozen waves
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 27 
 
 against the darkening sky. The memory of 
 Taylor's warning not to be late made me try what 
 seemed a shorter and easier path than the one 
 by which I had come ; but ere long the usual 
 difficulties of short cuts cropped up, and I had 
 eventually to limp back to the slope with a badly 
 cut ankle, which bled profusely despite my rough 
 efforts at bandaging. The loss of blood was 
 sufficient to make me feel quite sick and faint, so 
 that it startled me to come suddenly on Taylor 
 sooner than I expected. He was half kneeling, 
 half sitting on the snow ; his coat was off, and his 
 face bent over something propped against his arm. 
 
 ' " It's that boy," he said shortly, as I came up. 
 " I found him just after you left, l}TJig here, — to 
 rest, he says. It seems he has been making his 
 way to the Cave ever since that day, without bite 
 or sup, by the hills, — God knows how — to avoid 
 beiQg turned back by the others. And now he is 
 dying, and there's an end of it." 
 
 ' " The boy, — not Amra ! " I cried, bending in 
 my tui'n.
 
 28 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 ' Sure enough, on Taylor's arm, with Taylor's 
 coat over his wasted body, lay the young disciple. 
 His great luminous eyes looked out of a face 
 whence even death could not drive the beauty, 
 and his breath came in laboured gasps. 
 
 ' " Brandy ! I have some here," I suggested in 
 hot haste, moved to the idiotic suggestion by that 
 horror of standing helpless which besets us all in 
 presence of the Destroyer. 
 
 ' Taylor looked at the boy with a grave smile 
 and shook his head. " To begin with, he wouldn't 
 touch it ; besides, he is past all that sort of thing. 
 No one could help him now." He paused, shifting 
 the weight a little on his arm. 
 
 '"The Presence will grow tired holding me," 
 gasped the young voice feebly. " If the sahib will 
 put a stone under my head and cover me with 
 some snow, I will be able to crawl on by and by 
 when I am rested. For it is close, — quite close." 
 
 ' " Very close," muttered the doctor under his 
 breath. Suddenly he looked up at me, saying in 
 a half - apologetic way, " 1 was wondering if you
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 29 
 
 and I couldn't get him up there, — to Amar-nath 
 I mean. Life has been hard on him ; he deserves 
 an easy death." 
 
 ' " Of course we can," I cried in a rush of content 
 at the suggestion, as I hobbled round to get to the 
 other side, and so help the lad to his legs. 
 
 ' "Hollo," asked Taylor, with a quick professional 
 glance, " what have you done to your ankle ? 
 Sit down and let me overhaul it." 
 
 ' In vain I made light of it, in vain I appealed 
 to him. He peremptorily forbade my stirring for 
 another hour, asserting that I had injured a small 
 artery, and without caution might find difficulty 
 in reaching the tents, as it would be impossible 
 for him to help me much on the sort of ground 
 over which we had to travel. 
 
 ' " But the boy, Taylor 1 — the boy ! " T pleaded. 
 " It would be awful to leave him here. ' 
 
 ' " Who said he was to be left ? " retorted the 
 doctor crossly. "I'm going to carry him up as 
 soon as I've finished bandaging your leg. Don't 
 be in such a blessed hurry."
 
 30 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 ' " Carry him ! You can't do it up that 
 slope, strong as you are, Taylor, — I know you 
 can't." 
 
 ' " Can't ? " he echoed, as he stood up from his 
 labours. "Look at him and say can't again — if 
 you can." 
 
 'I looked and saw that the boy, but half- 
 conscious, yet restored to the memory of his 
 object by the touch of the snow on which Taylor 
 had laid him while engaged in bandaging my 
 foot, had raised himself painfully on his hands 
 and knees, and was struggling upwards, blindly, 
 doggedly. 
 
 ' " Damn it all," continued the doctor fiercely, 
 "isn't that sight enough to haunt a man if he 
 doesn't try ? Besides, I may find that precious 
 flower, — who knows ? " 
 
 ' As he spoke he stooped with the gentleness, 
 not so much of sympathy, as of long practice in 
 suffering, over the figure which, exhausted by its 
 brief effort, already lay prostrate on the 
 snow.
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 31 
 
 '"What is — the Presence — going — to do?" 
 moaned Amra doubtfully, as he felt the strong 
 arms close round liim. 
 
 ' " You and I are going to find the remission of 
 sins together at Amar-nath," replied the Presence 
 with a bitter laugh. 
 
 'The boy's head fell back on the doctor's 
 shoulder as if accustomed to the resting-place. 
 " Amar - nath ! " he murmured. " Yes ! I am 
 Amar-nath." 
 
 ' So I sat there helpless, and watched them up 
 the slope. Every slip, every stumble, seemed as 
 if it were my own. I clenched my hands and set 
 my teeth as if I too had part in the supreme effort, 
 and when the straining figure passed out of sight 
 I hid my face and tried not to think. It was the 
 longest hour I ever spent before Taylor's voice 
 holloing from the cliff above roused me to the 
 certainty of success. 
 
 ' " And the boy ? " I asked eagerly. 
 
 ' " Dead by this time, I expect," replied the 
 doctor shortly. " Come on — there's a good
 
 32 THE FLOWER OF FOEGIVENESS 
 
 fellow — we haven't a moment to lose. I mnst 
 look again for the flower to-morrow." 
 
 'But letters awaiting our return to camp 
 recalled him to duty on account of cholera in 
 the regiment ; so there was an end of anemone 
 hunting. The 101st suffered terribly, and Taylor 
 was in consequence hotter than ever over experi- 
 ments. The result you know.' 
 
 ' Yes, poor fellow ! but the anemone ? I don't 
 understand how it came here.' 
 
 My friend paused. 'That is the odd thing. 
 I was looking after the funeral and all that, for 
 Taylor and I were great friends, — he left me that 
 herbarium in memory of our time in Cashmere — 
 well, when I went over to the house about an 
 hour before to see everything done properly, 
 his bearer brought me one of those little flat 
 straw baskets the natives use. It had been 
 left during my absence, he said, by a young 
 Brahman, who assured him that it contained 
 something which the great doctor saMh had 
 been very anxious to possess, and which was
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 33 
 
 now sent by some one to whom he had been very 
 kmd. 
 
 ' " You told Mm the sahib was dead, I suppose ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 ' " This slave informed him that the master had 
 gained freedom, but he replied it was no matter, 
 as all his task was this." On opening the basket 
 I found a gourd such as the disciples carry round 
 for alms, and in it, planted among gypsum cUhris, 
 was that anemone ; or rather that is a part of it, 
 for I put some in Taylor's coffin.' 
 
 ' Ah ! I presume the gosain — Victor Emanuel, 
 I think you called him — sent the plant ; he knew 
 of the doctor's desii-e ? ' 
 
 ' Perhaps. The bearer said the Brahman was 
 a very handsome boy, very fair, dressed in the 
 usual black antelope- skin of the disciple. It is a 
 queer story anyhow, — is it not ? ' 
 
 VOL.
 
 HAEVEST 
 
 [Respectfully dedicated to our law-makers in India, who, by 
 giving to the soldier-peasants of the Punjab the novel right 
 of alienating their ancestral holdings, are fast tliroAving the 
 land, and vdth it the balance of power, into the hands of 
 money-gi'ubbers ; thus reducing those Avho stood by us in 
 our time of trouble to the position of serfs. ] 
 
 ' Ai ! Daughter of thy grandmother/ muttered 
 old Jaimul gently, as one of his yoke wavered, 
 making the handle waver also. The offender was 
 a barren buffalo doomed temporarily to the plough, 
 in the hopes of inducing her to look more favour- 
 ably on the first duty of the female sex, so she 
 started beneath the unaccustomed goad. 
 
 ' Ari ! sister, fret not,' muttered Jaimul again, 
 turning from obscure abuse to palpable flattery, 
 as being more likely to gain his object ; and once 
 more the tilted soil glided between his feet, traced 
 straight by his steady hand. In that vast expanse
 
 HARVEST 3 5 
 
 of bare brown field left by or waiting for the 
 plough, each new furrow seemed a fresh diameter 
 of the earth -circle which lay set in the bare 
 blue horizon — a circle centring always on Jaimul 
 and his plough. A brown dot for the buffalo, a 
 wliite dot for the ox, a brown and white dot for 
 the old peasant with his lanky brown limbs and 
 straight white drapery, his brown face, and long 
 w^iite beard. Brown, and white, and blue, with 
 the promise of harvest some time if the blue was 
 kind. That was all Jaimul knew or cared. The 
 empire beyond, hanging on the hope of harvest, 
 lay far from his simple imaginings ; and yet he, 
 the old peasant with his steady hand of patient 
 control, held the reins of government over how 
 many million square miles ? That is the province 
 of the Blue Book, and Jaimul's blue book was 
 the sky. 
 
 ' Bitter blue sky with no fleck of a cloud, 
 Ho ! brother ox ! make the plough speed. 
 
 [Ai ! soorin ! straight, I say !] 
 'Tis the usurers' bellies wax fat and proud 
 When poor folk are in need.'
 
 36 HARVEST 
 
 The rude guttural chant following these silent, 
 
 earth -deadened footsteps was the only sound 
 
 breaking the stillness of the wide plain. 
 
 ' Sky dappled grey like a partridge's breast, 
 Ho ! brother ox ! drive the plough deep. 
 [Stead}--, my sister, steady !] 
 The peasants work, but the usurers rest 
 Till harvest's ripe to reap.' 
 
 So on and on interminably, the chant and the 
 furrow, the furrow and the chant, both bringing 
 the same refrain of flattery and abuse, the same 
 antithesis — the peasant and the usurer face to 
 face in conflict, and above them both the fateful 
 sky, changeless or changeful as it chooses. 
 
 The sun climbed up and up till the blue 
 
 hardened into brass, and the mere thought of rain 
 
 seemed lost in the blaze of light. Yet Jaimul, 
 
 as he finally unhitched his plough, chanted away 
 
 in serene confidence — 
 
 ' Merry drops slanting from west to east, 
 
 Ho ! brother ox ! drive home the wain ; 
 'Tis the usurer's belly that gets the least 
 When Ram sends poor folk rain.' 
 
 The home whither he drove the lagging yoke
 
 HARVEST 37 
 
 was but a whitish- brown mound on the bare earth- 
 circle, not far removed from an ant-hill to alien 
 eyes ; for all that, home to the uttermost. Civilisa- 
 tion, education, culture could produce none better. 
 A home bright with the welcome of women, the 
 laughter of children. Old Kishnu, mother of them 
 all, wielding a relentless despotism tempered by 
 profound affection over every one save her aged 
 husband. Pertabi, widow of the eldest son, but 
 saved from degradation in this life and damnation 
 in the next by the tall lad whose grasp had 
 already closed on his grandfather's plough-handle. 
 Taradevi, whose soldier-husband was away guard- 
 ing some scientific or unscientific frontier, while 
 she reared up, in the ancestral home, a tribe of 
 sturdy youngsters to follow in his footsteps. 
 Fighting and ploughing, ploughing and fighting; 
 here was life epitomised for these long -limbed, 
 grave-eyed peasants whose tongues never faltered 
 over the shibboleth which showed their claim to 
 rasje.^ 
 
 Runjeet Singh never enlisted a man who, in counting up
 
 38 HARVEST 
 
 The home itself lay bare for the most part to 
 the blue sky ; only a few shallow outhouses, half 
 room, half verandah, giving shelter from noon-day 
 heat or winter frosts. The rest was courtyard, 
 serving amply for all the needs of the household. 
 In one corner a pile of golden chaff ready for the 
 milch kine which came in to be fed from the mud 
 mangers ranged against the wall ; in another a 
 heap of fuel, and the tall beehive -like mud re- 
 ceptacles for grain. On every side stores of 
 something brought into existence by the plough 
 — corn-cobs for husking, millet - stalks for the 
 cattle, cotton awaiting deft fingers and the 
 lacquered spinning-wheels which stand, cocked 
 on end, against the wall. Taradevi sits on the 
 white sheet spread beneath the quern, while her 
 eldest daughter, a girl about ten years of age, 
 lends slight aid to the revolving stones whence 
 the coarse flour falls ready for the mid -day meal. 
 
 to thirty said piich-is for five-and-twenty, but those who said 
 punj-is were passed. In other words, the patois was made a 
 test of whether the recruit belonged to the Trans-Sutlej tribes 
 or the Cis-Sutlej.
 
 HARVEST 39 
 
 Pertabi, down by the grain - bunkers, rakes more 
 wheat from the funnel -like opening into her flat 
 basket, and as she rises flings a handful to the 
 pigeons sidling on the wall. A fluttering of white 
 wings, a glint of sunlight on opaline necks, while 
 the children cease playing to watch their favourites 
 tumble and strut over the feast. Even old Kishnu 
 looks up from her preparation of curds without a 
 word of warning against waste ; for to be short of 
 grain is beyond her experience. Wherefore was 
 the usurer brought into the world save to supply 
 grain in advance when the blue sky sided with 
 capital against labour for a dry year or two ? 
 
 ' The land is ready,' said old Jaimul over his 
 pipe. ' 'Tis time for the seed, therefore I will seek 
 Anunt Eam at sunset and set my seal to the paper.' 
 
 That was how the transaction presented itself 
 to his accustomed eyes. Seed grain in exchange 
 for yet another seal to be set in the long row which 
 he and his forebears had planted regularly, year by 
 year, in the usurer's field of accounts. As for' the 
 harvests of such sowings ? Bah ! there never were
 
 40 HARVEST 
 
 any. A real crop of solid, hard, red wheat was 
 worth them all, and that came sometunes — might 
 come any time if the blue sky was kind. He 
 knew nothing of Statutes of Limitation or judg- 
 ments of the Chief Court, and his inherited wisdom 
 drew a broad line of demarcation between paper 
 and plain facts. 
 
 Anunt Ram, the usurer, however, was of 
 another school. A comparatively young man, 
 he had brought into his father's ancestral business 
 the modern selfishness which laughs to scorn all 
 considerations save that for Number One. He 
 and his forebears had made much out of Jaimul 
 and his fellows ; but was that any reason against 
 making more, if more was to be made ? 
 
 And more was indubitably to be made if Jaimul 
 and his kind were reduced to the level of labourers. 
 That handful of grain, for instance, thrown so reck- 
 lessly to the pigeons — that might be the usurer's, 
 and so might the plenty which went to build up 
 the long, strong limbs of Taradevi's tribe of young 
 soldiers — idle young scamps who thrashed the
 
 HARVEST 41 
 
 usurer's boys as diligently during play -time as 
 they were beaten by those clever weedy lads 
 during school-hours. 
 
 ' Seed grain/ he echoed sulkily to the old 
 peasant's calm demand. ' Sure last harvest I left 
 thee more wheat than most men in my place 
 would have done ; for the account grows, O 
 Jaimul 1 and the land is mortgaged to the 
 uttermost.' 
 
 * Mayhap ! but it must be sown for all that, else 
 thou wilt suffer as much as I. So quit idle words, 
 and give the seed as thou hast since time began. 
 Wliat do I know of accounts who can neither read 
 nor write ? 'Tis thy business, not mine.' 
 
 ' 'Tis not my business to give ought for nought 
 
 ' For nought ! ' broke in Jaimul with the hoarse 
 chuckle of the peasant availing himself of a time- 
 worn joke. * Thou canst add that nought to thy 
 figures, hunniah-ji! ^ So bring the paper and 
 
 ^ Bumiiah, a mercliant. Bunniah-ji signifies, as Shake- 
 speare would have said. Sir Merchant.
 
 42 HARVEST 
 
 have clone with words. If Earn sends rain — and 
 the omens are auspicious — thou canst take all but 
 food and jewels for the women.' 
 
 'Report saith thy house is rich enough in 
 them already/ suggested the usurer after a 
 pause. 
 
 Jaimul's big white eyebrows met over his 
 broad nose. ' What then, hunniah -ji ? ' he asked 
 haughtily. 
 
 Anunt Ram made haste to change the subject, 
 whereat Jaimul, smiling softly, told the usurer 
 that maybe more jewels would be needed with next 
 seed grain, since if the auguries were once more 
 propitious, the women purposed bringing home his 
 grandson's bride ere another year had sped. The 
 usurer smiled an evil smile. 
 
 ' Set thy seal to this also,' he said, when the 
 seed grain had been measured ; ' the rules demand 
 it. A plague, say I, on all these new-fangled 
 papers the saliih-logue ask of us. Look you ! how 
 I have to pay for the stamps and fees ; and then 
 you old ones say we new ones are extortionate.
 
 HARVEST 43 
 
 AVe must live, zemindar -ji ! ^ even as thoii 
 livest.' 
 
 ' Live ! ' retorted the old man with another 
 chuckle. ' Wherefore not ! The land is Q-ood 
 
 o 
 
 enough for you and for me. There is no fault in 
 the land ! ' 
 
 ' Ay ! it is good enough for me and for you/ 
 echoed the usurer slowly. He inverted the pro- 
 nouns — that w^as all. 
 
 So Jaimul, as he had done ever since he could 
 remember, walked over the bare plain with noise- 
 less feet, and watched the sun flash on the golden 
 grain as it flew from his thin brown fingers. And 
 once again the guttural chant kept time to his 
 silent steps. 
 
 ' Wheat grains grow to wheat, 
 
 And the seed of a tare to tare ; 
 Who knows if man's soul will meet 
 Man's body to wear ? 
 
 Great Eam, grant me life 
 
 From the grain of a golden deed ; 
 
 Sink not my soul in the strife 
 To wake as a weed.' 
 
 ^ Zciiiindar-ji, Sir Squire.
 
 44 HARVEST 
 
 After that his work in the fields was over. 
 Only at sunrise and sunset his tall, gaunt figure 
 stood out against the circling sky as he wandered 
 through the sprouting wheat waiting for the rain 
 which never came. Not for the first time in his long 
 life of waiting, so he took the want calmly, soberly. 
 
 ' It is a bad year,' he said, ' the next will be 
 better. For the sake of the boy's marriage I 
 would it had been otherwise, but Anunt Earn 
 must advance the money. It is his business.' 
 
 Whereat Jodha, the youngest son, better versed 
 than his father in new ways, shook his head 
 doubtfully. ' Have a care of Anunt, haha-ji,' ^ 
 he suggested with diffidence. ' Folk say he is 
 sharper than ever his father was.' 
 
 ''Tis a trick sons have, or think they have, 
 nowadays,' retorted old Jaimul wrathfully. 'Anunt 
 can wait for payment as his fathers waited. God 
 knows the interest is enough to stand a dry season 
 or two.' 
 
 ^ Baba, as a term of familiarity, is applied indifferently to 
 young and old.
 
 HARVEST 45 
 
 In truth fifty per cent, and payment in kind 
 at the lowest harvest rates, with a free hand in 
 regard to the cooking of accounts, should have 
 satisfied even a usurer's soul. But Anunt Earn 
 wanted that handful of grain for the pigeons and 
 the youngsters' mess of pottage. He wanted the 
 land, in fact, and so the long row of dibbled-in seals 
 dotting the unending scroll of accounts began to 
 sprout and bear fruit. Drought gave them life, 
 while it brought death to many a better seed. 
 
 ' Not give the money for the boy's wedding ! ' 
 shrilled old Kishnu six months after in high dis- 
 pleasure. ' Is the man mad ? When the fields 
 are the best in all the country-side.' 
 
 ' True enough, wife ! but he says the value 
 under these new rules the saJiih-logue make is gone 
 already. That he must wait another harvest, or 
 have a new seal of me.' 
 
 ' Is that all, Jaimul Singh ! and thou causing 
 my liver to melt with fear ? A seal — what is a 
 seal or two more against the son of thy son's 
 marriage ? '
 
 46 HARVEST 
 
 ' 'Tis a new seal,' muttered Jaimul uneasily, 
 ' and I like not new things. Perhaps 'twere better 
 to wait the harvest.' 
 
 ' Wait the harvest and lose the auspicious time 
 the purohit^ hath found written in the stars ? Ai, 
 Taradevi ! Ai, Pertabi ! there is to be no 
 marriage, hark you 1 The boy's strength is to go 
 for nought, and the bride is to languish alone 
 because the father of his father is afraid of a 
 usurer ! Had, Had ! ' 
 
 The women wept the easy tears of their race, 
 mingled with half-real, half-pretended fears lest 
 the Great Ones might resent such disregard of their 
 good omens — the old man sitting silent meanwhile, 
 for there is no tyranny like the tyranny of those 
 we love. Despite all this his native shrewdness 
 held his tenderness in check. They would get over 
 it, he told himself, and a good harvest would do 
 wonders — ay ! even the wonders which the pitroliit 
 was always finding in the skies. Trust a good fee 
 
 ^ PuroJdt, a spiritual teacher, a sage, answering in some 
 respects to the Red Indian's medicine-man.
 
 HARVEST 47 
 
 for that ! So he hardened his heart, went back to 
 Anunt Ram, and told him that he had decided on 
 postponing the marriage. The usurer's face fell. 
 To be so near the seal which would make it 
 possible for him to foreclose the mortgages, and 
 yet to fail ! He had counted on this marriage fbr 
 years ; the blue sky itself had fought for him so 
 far, and now — what if the coming harvest were a 
 bumper ? 
 
 'But I will seal for the seed grain,' said old 
 Jaimul ; ' I have done that before, and I will do it 
 again — we know that bargain of old.' 
 
 Anunt Eam closed his pen-tray with a snap. 
 ' There is no seed grain for you, haha-Ji, this year 
 either,' he replied calmly. 
 
 Ten days afterwards, Kishnu, Pertabi, and 
 Taradevi w^ere bustling about the courtyard with 
 the untiring energy which fills the Indian woman 
 over the mere thought of a wedding, and Jaimul, 
 out in the fields, was chanting as he scattered the 
 grain into the fiu^rows —
 
 48 HARVEST 
 
 ' Wrinkles and seams and sears 
 On the face of our mother earth ; 
 There are ever sorrows and tears 
 At the gates of birth.' 
 
 The mere thought of the land lying fallow had 
 been too much for him ; so safe in the usurer's 
 strong-box lay a deed with the old man's seal 
 sitting cheek by jowl beside Anunt Eam's brand- 
 new English signature. And Jaimul knew, in a 
 vague, unrestful way, that this harvest differed 
 from other harvests, in that more depended u]3on 
 it. So he wandered oftener than ever over the 
 brown expanse of field where a flush of green 
 showed that Mother Earth had done her part, 
 and was waiting for Heaven to take up the 
 task. 
 
 The wedding fire-balloons rose from the court- 
 yard, and drifted away to form constellations in 
 the cloudless sky ; the sound of wedding drums 
 and pipes disturbed the stillness of the starlit 
 nights, and still day by day the green shoots grew 
 lighter and lighter in colour because the rain came 
 not. Then suddenly, like a man's hand, a little
 
 HARVEST 49 
 
 cloud ! ' Meny drops slanting from west to the 
 east ' ; merrier by far to Jaimiil's ears than all the 
 marriage music was that low rumble from the 
 canopy of purple cloud, and the discordant scream 
 of the peacock telling of the storm to come. Then 
 in the evening, when the setting sun could only 
 send a bar of pale primrose light between the solid 
 purple and the solid brown, what joy to pick a dry- 
 shod way along the boundary ridges and see the 
 promise of harvest doubled by the reflection of each 
 tender green spikelet in the flooded fields ! The 
 night settled down dark, heavenly dark, with a 
 fine spray of steady rain in the old, weather-beaten 
 face, as it set itself towards home. 
 
 The blue sky was on the side of labour this 
 time, and, durmg the next month or so, Taradevi's 
 young soldiers made mud pies, and crowed more 
 lustily than ever over the hunniah's boys. 
 
 Then the silvery beard began to show in the 
 
 wheat, and old Jaimul laughed aloud in the 
 
 fulness of his heart. 
 
 ' That is an end of the new seal,' he said boast- 
 VOL. I E
 
 50 HARVEST 
 
 fully, as he smoked his pipe in the village 
 square. 'It is a poor man's harvest, and no 
 mistake.' 
 
 But Anunt Earn was silent. The April sun had 
 given some of its sunshine to the yellowing crops 
 before he spoke. 
 
 ' I can wait no longer for my money, haba-ji/' 
 he said; 'the three years are nigh over, and I 
 must defend myself.' 
 
 ' What three years ? ' asked Jaimul, in per- 
 plexity. 
 
 ' The three years during which I can claim my 
 own according to the saliih-logue s rule. You must 
 pay, or I must sue.' 
 
 ' Pay before harvest ! What are these fool's 
 words ? Of course I will pay in due time ; hath 
 not great Eam sent me rain to wash out the old 
 writing ? ' 
 
 ' But what of the new one, haha-ji ? — the cash 
 lent on permission to foreclose the mortgages ? ' 
 
 ' If the harvest failed — if it failed,' protested 
 Jaimul, quickly. ' And I knew it could not fail.
 
 HAKVEST 51 
 
 The stars said so, and great Ram would not have 
 it so.' 
 
 ' That is old-world talk ! ' sneered Anunt. 'We 
 do not put that sort of thing in the bond. You 
 sealed it, and I must sue.' 
 
 ' What good to sue ere harvest ? What money 
 have I ? But I will pay good grain when it comes, 
 and the paper can grow as before.' 
 
 Anunt Earn sniggered. 
 
 ' What good, haba-ji ? Why, the land will be 
 mine, and I can take, not what you give me, but 
 what I choose. For the labourer his hire, and the 
 rest for me.' 
 
 ' Thou art mad ! ' cried Jaimul, but he went 
 back to his fields with a crreat fear at his heart — 
 
 o 
 
 a fear which sent him a^ain to the usurer's ere 
 many days were over. 
 
 'Here are my house's jewels,' he said briefly, 
 ' and the mare thou hast coveted these two years. 
 Take them, and write off my debt till harvest.' 
 
 Anunt Ram smiled again. 
 
 ' It shall be part payment of the acknowledged
 
 52 HARVEST 
 
 claim,' he said; 'let the Courts decide on the 
 rest.' 
 
 ' After the harvest ? ' 
 
 ' Ay, after the harvest ; in consideration of the 
 jewels.' 
 
 Anunt Earn kept his word, and the fields were 
 shorn of their crop ere the summons to attend 
 the District Court was brought to the old peasant. 
 
 ' By the Great Spirit who judges all it is a lie!' 
 That was all he could say as the long, carefully- 
 woven tissue of fraud and cunning blinded even 
 the eyes of a justice biassed in his favour. The 
 records of our Indian law-courts teem with such 
 cases — cases where even equity can do nothing 
 against the evidence of pen and paper. No need 
 to detail the strands which formed the net. The 
 long array of seals had borne fruit at last, fifty- 
 fold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold — a goodly harvest 
 for the usurer. 
 
 ' Look not so glum, friend,' smiled Anunt Earn, 
 as they pushed old Jaimul from the Court at last, 
 dazed, but still vehemently protesting. 'Thou
 
 HARVEST 53 
 
 and Joclha thy son shall till the land as ever, see- 
 ing thou art skilled in such work, but there shall 
 be no idlers ; and the land, mark you, is mine, not 
 thine.' 
 
 A sudden gleam of furious hate sprang to the 
 strong old face, but died away as quickly as it 
 came. 
 
 ' Thou liest,' said Jaimul ; ' I will appeal. The 
 land is mine. It hath been mine and my fathers' 
 under the king's pleasure since time began. 
 Kings, ay, and queens, for tliat matter, are not 
 fools, to give good land to the hwinicclis belly. 
 Can a hunniah plough ? ' 
 
 Yet as he sat all day about the court-house 
 steps awaiting some legal detail or other, doubt 
 even of his own increduhty came over him. He 
 had often heard of similar misfortunes to his 
 fellows, but somehow the possibility of such evil 
 appearing in his own life had never entered his 
 brain. And what would Kishnu say — after all 
 these years, these long years of content ? 
 
 The moon gathering light as the sun set shone
 
 54 HARVEST 
 
 full on the road, as the old man, with downcast 
 head, made his way across the level plain to the 
 mud hovel which had been a true home to him 
 and his for centuries. His empty hands hung at 
 his sides, and the fingers twitched nervously as if 
 seeking something. On either side the bare 
 stubble, stretching away from the track which led 
 deviously to the scarce discernible hamlets here 
 and there. Not a soul in sight, but every now 
 and again a glimmer of light showing where some 
 one was watching the heaps of new threshed grain 
 upon the threshing-floors. 
 
 And then a straighter thread of path leading 
 right upon his own fields and the village beyond. 
 What was that ? A man riding before him. The 
 blood leapt through the old veins, and the old 
 hands gripped in upon themselves. So he — that 
 liar riding ahead — was to have the land, was he ? 
 Eiding the mare too, while he, Jaimul, came be- 
 hind afoot, — yet for all that gaining steadily with 
 long, swinging stride on the figure ahead. A 
 white figure on a white horse like death ; or was
 
 HARVEST 5 5 
 
 the avenger beliiiicl beneath the lank folds of 
 drapery which fluttered round the walker ? 
 
 The land ! Xo ! He should never have the 
 land. How could he ? The very idea was absurd. 
 Jaimul, thinking thus, held his head erect and his 
 hands relaxed their grip. He was close on the 
 rider now, and just before him, clear in the moon- 
 light, rose the boundary mark of his fields — a 
 loose pile of sun-baked clods, hardened by many a 
 dry year of famine to the endurance of stone. 
 Beside it, the shallow whence they had been dug, 
 showing a gleam of water still held in the stiff 
 clay. The mare paused, straining at the bridle 
 for a drink, and Jaimul almost at her heels 
 paused also, involuntarily, mechanically. For a 
 moment they stood thus, a silent white group in 
 the moonhght, then the figure on the horse 
 slipped to the ground and moved a step forward. 
 Only one step, but that was within the boundary. 
 Then, above the even wheeze of the thirsty beast, 
 rose a low chuckle as the usurer stooped for a 
 handful of soil and let it glide through his fingers.
 
 56 HARVEST 
 
 ' It is good ground ! Ay, ay — none better.' 
 They were his last words. In fierce passion of 
 love, hate, jealousy, and protection, old Jaimul 
 closed on his enemy, and found something to grip 
 with his steady old hands. Not the plough - 
 handle this time, but a throat, a warm, living 
 throat where you could feel the blood swellmg in 
 the veins beneath your fingers. Down almost 
 without a struggle, the old face above the young 
 one, the lank knee upon the broad body. And 
 now, quick ! for something to slay withal, ere age 
 tired in its contest with youth and strength. 
 There, ready since all time, stood the landmark, 
 and one clod after another snatched from it fell 
 on the upturned face with a dull thud. Fell 
 again and again, crashed and broke to crumbling 
 soil. Good soil ! Ay ! none better ! Wheat 
 might grow in it and give increase fortyfold, 
 sixtyfold, ay, a hundredfold. Again, again, and 
 yet again, with dull insistence till there was a 
 shuddering sigh, and then silence. Jaimul stood 
 up quivering from the task and looked over his
 
 HARVEST 57 
 
 fields. They were at least free from that thing 
 at his feet ; for what part in this world's harvest 
 could belong to the ghastly figure with its face 
 beaten to a jelly, which lay staring up into the 
 overarching sky ? So far, at any rate, the business 
 was settled for ever, and in so short a time that 
 the mare had scarcely slaked her thirst, and still 
 stood with head dow^n, the water dripping from 
 her muzzle. The fJiinrj would never ride her 
 again either. Half-involuntarily he stepped to 
 her side and loosened the girth. 
 
 'Art/ sister,' he said aloud, 'thou hast had 
 enough. Go home.' 
 
 The docile beast obeyed his well-known \oice, 
 and as her echoing amble died away Jaimul 
 looked at his blood-stained hands and then at the 
 formless face at his feet. There was no home for 
 him, and yet he was not sorry, or ashamed, or 
 frightened — only dazed at the hurry of his own 
 act. Such things had to be done sometimes when 
 folk were unjust. They would hang him for it, of 
 course, but he had at least made his protest,
 
 58 HARVEST 
 
 and done his deed as good men and true should 
 do when the time came. So he left the horror 
 staring up into the sky and made his way to the 
 threshing-floor, which lay right in the middle of 
 his fields. How white the great heaps of yellow 
 corn showed in the moonlight, and how large ! 
 His heart leapt with a fierce joy at the sight. 
 Here was harvest indeed ! Some one lay asleep 
 upon the biggest pile, and his stern old face re- 
 laxed into a smile as, stooping over the careless 
 sentinel, he found it was his grandson. The boy 
 would w^atch better as he grew older, thought 
 Jaimul, as he drew his cotton plaid gently over 
 the smooth round limbs outlined among the yield- 
 ing grain, lest the envious moon might covet their 
 promise of beauty. 
 
 ' Son of my son ! Son of my son ! ' he mur- 
 mured over and over again, as he sat down to 
 watch out the night beside his corn for the last 
 time. Yes, for the last time. At dawn the deed 
 would be discovered ; they would take him, and he 
 would not deny his own handiwork. Why should
 
 HARVEST 59 
 
 he ? The midnight air of May was hot as a 
 furnace, and as he wiped the sweat from his fore- 
 head it mingled with the dust and blood upon his 
 hands. He looked at them with a curious smile 
 before he lay back among the corn. ]\Iany a 
 night he had watched the slow stars wheeling to 
 meet the morn, but never by a faii^er harvest than 
 this. 
 
 The boy at his side stirred in his sleep. ' Son 
 of my son ! Son of my son I ' came the low 
 murmur again. Ay ! and his son after him again, 
 if the woman said true. It had always been so. 
 Father and son, father and son, father — and son — 
 for ever, — and ever, — and ever. 
 
 So, lulled by the familiar thought, the old man 
 fell asleep beside the boy, and the whole bare ex- 
 panse of earth and sky seemed empty save for 
 them. Xo ! there was something else surely. 
 Down on the hard white threshing-floor — was 
 that a branch or a fragment of rope ? Neither, for 
 it moved deviously hither and thither, raising a 
 hooded head now and again as if seeking some-
 
 60 HARVEST 
 
 thing ; for all its twists and turns bearing steadily 
 towards the sleepers ; past the boy, making him 
 shift uneasily as the cold coil touched his arms ; 
 swifter now as it drew nearer the scent, till it 
 found what it sought upon the old man's hands. -^ 
 
 ' Ari, sister! straight, I say, straight!' mur- 
 mured the old ploughman in his sleep, as his grip 
 strengthened over something that wavered in his 
 steady clasp. Was that the prick of the goad ? 
 Sure if it bit so deep upon the sister's hide no 
 wonder she started. He must keep his grip for 
 men's throats when sleep was over — when this 
 great sleep w^as over. 
 
 The slow stars wheeled, and when the morn 
 brought Justice, it found old Jaimul dead among 
 his corn and left him there. But the women 
 washed the stains of blood and sweat mins^led with 
 soil and seed grains from his hands before the 
 wreath of smoke from his funeral pyre rose up to 
 make a white cloud no bigger than a man's hand 
 
 ^ Snakes are said to be attracted by the scent of blood, as 
 they are undoubtedly by that of milk.
 
 HAKYEST 61 
 
 upon the bitter blue sky — a cloud that brought 
 gladness to no heart. 
 
 The usurer's boys, it is true, forced the utmost 
 from the land, and sent all save bare sustenance 
 across the seas ; but the home guided by Jaimul's 
 unswerving hand was gone, the Taradevi's tribe 
 of budding soldiers drifted away to learn the 
 lawlessness born of change. Perhaps the yellow 
 English gold which came into the country in re- 
 turn for the red Indian wheat more than paid for 
 these trivial losses. Perhaps it did not. That is a 
 question which the next Mutiny must settle.
 
 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 An old man dreaming of a past day and night as 
 he sat waiting, and these were his dreams. 
 
 Darkness, save for the Kght of the stars in the 
 sky and the flare of blazing roof-trees on earth. 
 Two shadowy figures out in the open, and 
 through the parched silence of the May night a 
 man's voice feeble, yet strenuous in appeal. 
 
 ' Dhurm Singh ? ' 
 
 ' Huzoor ! ' 
 
 The kneeling figure bent closer over the other, 
 waiting. 
 
 ' The mtm sahihct, Dhurm Singh.' 
 
 ' Huzoor — dhurm ndl.' ^ 
 
 1 With faith.
 
 FOR THE FAITH 63 
 
 Then silence, broken only by the long howl of 
 jackals gathering before their time round that 
 scene of mutiny and murder. 
 
 Darkness once more. The darkness of day- 
 light shut out by prisoning walls. The sweltering 
 heat of July oozing through the shot-cracked 
 walls ; the horrors of starvation, and siege, and 
 sickness round two dim figures. And once again 
 a strenuous voice — this time a woman's. 
 
 ' Dhurm Singh ! ' 
 
 ' Huzoor.' 
 
 The answer came as before — broad, soft, gut- 
 tural, in the accent of the north — 
 
 ' Sonny haha, Dhurm Singh ! ' 
 
 ' Huzoor — dhurm ndl! 
 
 Then silence, broken only by the ivhist-ch-t 
 of a wandering bullet against the wall of the 
 crumbling fort, where one more victim had found 
 peace. 
 
 Both the May night and the July day were in
 
 64 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 old Dhiirm Singh's thoughts as he sat on his heels 
 looking out from the Apollo Bunder at Bombay 
 across the Black Water, waiting, after long years, 
 for Sonny Icibcts ship to loom over the level 
 horizon. A stranger figure among the sHght, 
 smooth coolies busy around him with bales and 
 belaying pins than he would have been among 
 the dockers at Limehouse. Tall, gaunt, his long 
 white beard parted over the chin and bound 
 backwards over his ears, his broad mustache 
 spreading straight under his massive nose, his 
 level eyebrows like a white streak between the 
 open brown forehead and the open brown eyes. 
 A faded red tunic, empty of the left arm, a solitary 
 medal on the breast, and above the unseen coils of 
 white hair — long as a woman's — the high wound 
 turban bearing the sacred steel quoit of the Sikh 
 devotee. 
 
 Such was Dhurm Singh, Akdli ; in other words. 
 Lion of the Faith and member of the Church 
 Militant. Pensioner to boot for an anna or so a 
 day to a Government which he had also served
 
 FOR THE FAITH 65 
 
 dhurm ndl as he had served his dead captain, 
 
 his dead mistress, and, last of all. Sonny haha ! 
 
 Twenty years ago. Yes ! twenty years since 
 
 he had answered those strenuous appeals by his 
 
 favourite word-play on his own name. He had 
 
 used it for many another promise during those 
 
 long years; as a rule, truthfully. For Dhurm 
 
 Singh, as a rule, did things dhurm ndl, — partly 
 
 because a slow, invincible tenacity of purpose 
 
 made all chopping and changing distasteful, 
 
 partly because fidelity to the master is sucked in 
 
 with the mother's milk of the Sikh race : very 
 
 little, it is to be feared, from conscious virtue. 
 
 Twenty years ago he had carried Sonny haha 
 
 through the jungles by night on his unhurt arm, 
 
 and hidden as best he could in the tiger-grass by 
 
 day, because of his promise. And now, as he sat 
 
 waiting for Sonny haha to come sailing over the 
 
 edge of his world again, the broad simple face 
 
 expanded into smiles at the memory. He passed 
 
 by all the stress and strains of that unforgotten 
 
 flight in favour of a little yellow head nestling 
 VOL. I F
 
 66 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 back in alarm against the bloodstains on the old 
 tunic, when the white meins in the big cantonment 
 of refuge had held out their arms to the child. 
 
 Sonny haha had known his friends in those 
 days ; ay ! and he had remembered them all 
 these years : he and the me7n/s sister, who had 
 taken charge of the boy in the foreign land across 
 the Black Waters whence the masters came — a 
 gracious Miss who wrote regularly once a year 
 to ex-duffadar Dhurm Singh, giving him the last 
 news of Sonny haha, and as regularly urging her 
 correspondent to safeguard himself against certam 
 damnation by becoming an infidel. For this, 
 briefly, crudely, was the recipient's view of the 
 matter as he sat staring at the little picture 
 texts and tracts in the Punjabi character which 
 invariably accompanied the letters. They puzzled 
 him, those picture cards in the sacred characters 
 which were printed so beautifully in the far-off land 
 by people who knew nothing of him or his people, 
 and who yet wrote better than any moJiitnt} 
 
 1 Priest.
 
 FOR THE FAITH 67 
 
 Puzzled him in more ways than one, since duty 
 and desire divided as to the method of their 
 disposal. Eespect for the captdn-sahih, whom he 
 had left lying dead at the back of the native lines 
 on that May night, forbade his destroying them ; 
 respect for his own rehgious profession forbade 
 his disseminating the pictures, irrespective of 
 the letterpress, as playthings among the village 
 children. So he tied them up in a bundle with 
 his pension papers, and kept them in the breast 
 pocket of the old tunic under the bloodstains and 
 the solitary medal which was beginning to fray 
 through its particoloured ribbon, — an odd item 
 in that costume of a Sikh devotee which he had 
 assumed when the final loss of his arm forced 
 him mto peace and a pension. As a rule, how- 
 ever, the tunic was hidden under the orthodox 
 blue and white garments matching the turban, just 
 as the huge steel bracelets on his arms matched 
 the steel quoit on his head ; but on this day 
 loyalty to the dead had spoken in favour of the 
 old uniform. It may seem a strange choice, this
 
 68 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 of devoteeship, but to the old swash - buckler it 
 was infinitely more amusing, even in these de- 
 generate days when Akdli-clom had lost half its 
 power, to go swaggering about from fair to festival, 
 from festival to fair, representing the Church 
 Militant, than to lounge about the village watching 
 the agricultural members of the family cultivate 
 the ancestral lands. They did it admirably 
 without his help, as they had done it always ; 
 so Dhurm Singh, at a loose end now legitimate 
 strife was over, took to cultivating his hair with 
 baths of buttermilk instead, adopted the quoit 
 and the bracelets, and used the most pious of 
 Sikh oaths as he watched the wrestlers wrestle, 
 or played singlestick for the honour of God 
 and the old regiment. And there were other 
 advantages in the profession. A man might 
 take a more than reasonable amount of opium 
 occasionally without laying hunself open to a 
 heavier accusation than that of religious en- 
 thusiasm ; since opium is part of the A kalis stock 
 in trade.
 
 FOR THE FAITH 69 
 
 As he sat among the tarred ropes with his 
 back against a consignment of beer and rum for 
 the British soldier, he broke off quite a large 
 corner of the big black lump he kept in the same 
 pocket \Yith the tracts, and swallowed it whole. 
 Sonny hahas ship was not due, they told him, 
 for some hours to come, so there would be time 
 for quiet dreams both of past and future. The 
 latter somewhat confused, since the Miss-sa7u6's 
 letters had not always been adequately trans- 
 lated by the village schoolmaster. Only this 
 was sure: Sonny haba was three -and -twenty, 
 and he was coming out to Hindustan once more 
 as an ofi&cer in the great army. In fact, he was 
 a captdn already, which was big promotion for 
 his few years. So Dhurm Singh — who to say 
 sooth, was becoming somewhat tired of the Church 
 ^Militant now that younger men began to beat 
 him at singlestick — had returned to the old 
 allegiance and made his way down country, 
 like many another old servant, to meet his 
 master's son and take service with him. You see
 
 70 FOE THE FAITH 
 
 them often, these old, anxious-looking retainers, 
 waiting on the Apollo Bunder, or coming aboard 
 in the steam launches with wistful, expectant 
 faces. 
 
 And some beardless youth, fresh from Eton or 
 Harrow, says with a laugh, ' By George ! are you 
 old Munnoo or Bunnoo ? Here ! look after my 
 traps, will you ? ' And the traps are duly looked 
 after, while the Philosophical Kadical on the 
 rampage is taking the opportunity afforded by 
 baggage parade to record in his valuable diary 
 the pained surprise at the want of touch between 
 the rulers and the ruled, which is, alas ! his first 
 impression of India. In all probability it will be 
 his last also, since it is conceivable that both 
 rulers and ruled may be glad to get rid of him 
 on the approach of the hot weather. Mosquitoes 
 are troublesome, and cholera is disconcerting, but 
 they are bearable beside the man who invariably 
 knows the answers to his own questions before 
 he asks them. 
 
 Dhurm Singh's dreams, however, if confused,
 
 FOR THE FAITH 7l 
 
 were pleasant; full of strong meats and drinks, 
 and men in buckram. He could not, of course, 
 serve the Sirkar again with the chance of hatta 
 and loot, but he could serve the cliota sahih and 
 wear a badge. After all, a badge-wearer had his 
 opportunities of hectoring. And then, how he 
 could talk round the camp fires ! What tales 
 he could tell! — bearing in mind, of course, the 
 advancement of God and the Gurus. He fell 
 asleep finally in the sunshine, blissfully content. 
 The tide ebbed in the backwaters, the guardship 
 lay white and trim in the open, the tram horses 
 clattered up and down, the Eoyal Yacht Club 
 pennant flew out against the blue sky, a match 
 was being played on the links hard by, and the 
 very coolies, as they hauled and heaved, used a 
 polyglot of sailors' slang. Only the palm-trees 
 on the point over the bay gave an Oriental touch 
 to the scene. 
 
 ' Dhurm Singh ! my dear, dear old friend ! 
 Look, comrades, this is the man who carried me
 
 72 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 to safety in his arms even as the Good Shepherd 
 carries His lambs.' 
 
 The speech had that unreal sound which is the 
 curse of the premeditated, except in the mouth 
 of a born actor, which Sonny haba was not. And 
 yet the young curves of the lips quivered. Per- 
 haps the commonplace exclamation of the British 
 boy mentioned before would have come more 
 naturally to them, but Staff-captain Sonny haba 
 of the Salvation Army was on parade, and bound 
 to keep up his character. Nevertheless there 
 was no lack of warmth in the grip he got of the 
 old man's reluctant hand. 
 
 ' Huzoor ! ' faltered Dhurm Singh, taken aback 
 at this condescension, and letting the sword he 
 was about to present fall back on its belt with a 
 clatter. The fact being that the said sword had 
 been an occasion of much mental distress ; as 
 an actual Q^-chiffaclar it was irregular, but as a 
 possible bodyguard it was strictly de rigueur. 
 Perhaps, however, times had changed in this as 
 in other ways during those twenty years. The
 
 FOR TFE FAITH 73 
 
 very uniform worn by the score or so of men 
 drawn up on the deck was strange ; and what 
 did that squad of mem sahibs mean ? Their dress 
 did not seem so strange to the old AMU, since 
 in those pahny days before the Mutiny the 
 fashions were not so far removed from the 
 costume of a Salvation lass : but the tambourines ! 
 
 ' Come and speak to the General/ said Sonny 
 haba somewhat hurriedly. He spoke in English ; 
 but just as the formula, ' Look after my traps ' is 
 ' understanded of the common people ' at once, so 
 the word ' General ' brought a relieved compre- 
 hension to the old Sikh's face. There were blessed 
 frogs on this one's coat also, which, like the word 
 Mesopotamia, were charged with consolation. 
 
 The General looked at him with that curious 
 philanthropic smile which, while it welcomes the 
 object, has a kind of circumambient beam of 
 mutual congratulation for all spectators of the 
 benevolence. 
 
 ' You have seen service, my good old friend,' 
 he exclaimed in fluent Urdu, as he pointed with a
 
 74 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 declamatory wave of his hand to the sohtaiy 
 medal, ' but it was poor service to what we offer 
 you now. Come to us, be our first-fruit, and 
 help to carry the colours of the Great Army in 
 the van of the fight.' 
 
 A speech meant palpably for the gallery. 
 
 Dhurm Singh, however, took it at attention 
 and saluted — 
 
 ''Pension -wallah, Hnzoo7\ unfit for duty,' he 
 replied with modest brevity, indicating his empty 
 sleeve. 
 
 The G-eneral caught at the occasion for even 
 greater unction with a complacency which could 
 not be concealed. 
 
 ' The Great Army is recruited from those who 
 are unfit for duty, from those who are sinners. 
 Is it not so, comrades ? Are we not all maimed, 
 halt, blind, yet entering into life ? ' 
 
 ' Hallelujah ! Hallelujah ! ' cried the company, 
 bursting into the refrain of a hymn, in which 
 Sonny haha joined with an angelic voice. The 
 voice, in fact, was largely responsible for the
 
 FOR THE FAITH 75 
 
 position in which he found himself. The old 
 swash-buckler's eyes grew moist as he looked 
 at him, thinking that he was the very image, 
 for sure, of his dead father, who had been the 
 pride of the regiment. Nevertheless the effer- 
 vescence of song left the old man still deprecating 
 and fumbling in his tunic. 
 
 'The General -sahib mistakes; these are my 
 pinson papers.' 
 
 That proved a climax. When, just as you 
 are setting foot on a country which you have 
 sworn to conquer, an old warrior comes aboard 
 and produces a bundle of Scripture texts and Sal- 
 vation h}Tnns out of his innermost breast pocket, 
 naturally nothing is left but to enthuse ? What 
 followed Dhurm Singh only dimly understood, 
 but he stuck manfully to his intention of follow- 
 ing Sonny baha to the death if needs be. The 
 result being that at four o'clock in the afternoon 
 he took part in a procession round the town of 
 Bombay — mortal man of his mould being mani- 
 festly unable to resist the temptation of marching
 
 76 FOE THE FAITH 
 
 in step behind a big drum, with the colours of a 
 whole army on his shoulders; especially when 
 unlimited opportunity for scowling defiance at 
 hostile crowds is thrown into the bargain. By 
 eight o'clock, however, matters had assumed a 
 different complexion ; so had Dhurm Singh, as he 
 sat in the lock-up, vastly contented with his black 
 eye and an ugly cut on the nose, which he 
 explained gleefully to Sonny hctba, put him in 
 mind of old times. The latter, through the 
 medium of a fellow-passenger who knew Punjabi, 
 was meanwhile trying to make the old sinner 
 understand that he had got the whole army 
 into trouble, and that personally he must stand 
 his trial for a breach of the peace. 
 
 'And tell him, please,' said Sonny laba with 
 grieved diffidence, ' that we all think he must 
 have been drunk.' 
 
 An odd smile struggled with the gravity of 
 Dr. Taylor's interpretation of the reply. 
 
 ' He says, of course he was drunk, as you all 
 were. In fact, he bought a bottle of rum instead
 
 FOR THE FAITH 77 
 
 of taking his opium, so that the effects might be 
 uniform — I'm telling you the sober truth, my 
 dear boy. You see you don't know the people 
 or the country, or anything about them. I do. 
 Besides, the Tommies — the regular soldiers I mean 
 — always make a point of getting drunk if they 
 can when they go down or come up to the sea in 
 ships. Perhaps it's the connection between reeling 
 to and fro, you know. I beg your pardon; no 
 offence — but really, what with the tambourines — ' 
 
 Dr. Taylor paused with his bright eyes on the 
 boy's face. They had been cabin companions, 
 and despite an absolute antagonism of thought, 
 chums. It is so sometimes, and as a rule such 
 friendships last. 
 
 'Did you tell him the General was greatly 
 displeased? It is such a terrible beginning to 
 our campaign; so unscriptural,' mourned Sonny 
 tdba evasively. 
 
 ' I don't know about that ; wasn't there some 
 one who smote off some one else's ear ? and that, I 
 believe, is what the old man is accused of doing.
 
 78 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 I beg your pardon again, but the coincidence 
 is remarkable.' 
 
 ' And what is he saying now ? ' put in the 
 other hurriedly. 
 
 Dr. Taylor paused. 
 
 ' He is calling down the blessing of the one 
 true God upon your head, now and for all 
 eternity/ he answered slowly, and there was a sort 
 of hush in his voice. 
 
 Sonny hctba's eyes grew suspiciously moist, but 
 he shook his head dutifully. ' How — how sad/ he 
 began. 
 
 ' Very sad that you can't understand what he 
 says/ interrupted Dr. Taylor curtly, ' because as 
 I've only just time to catch my train I must be 
 off. Salaam, Ahdli sahih I ' 
 
 Dhurm Singh, standing to salute, detained the 
 doctor for a minute with eager questioning. 
 
 ' What is it ? ' asked Sonny haba again. ' What 
 is it he wants to know ? ' 
 
 Dr. Taylor gave a short laugh. ' He wants to 
 know who the General's papa and mamma were.
 
 FOR THE FAITH ' 79 
 
 because he isn't a gentleman. You needn't stare 
 so, my dear fellow. That is the first thing they 
 find out about an Englishman, and it needs a lot 
 of grit and go in a man to get over the initial 
 drawback. "Well, good-bye, and if you will take 
 my advice, come up north, see the people, learn 
 their language, and appreciate their lives before 
 you try to change them. And look here ! don't 
 go taking an AMU about in a religious procession 
 with drums and banners. It isn't safe, especially 
 if you are going to Bengal.' 
 
 ' Why Bengal more than other places ? ' 
 ' Accustomed to Uck them, that's all — hereditary 
 instinct. Well, good-bye again, and take my ad- 
 vice and come north. The old swash- buckler 
 might be of some use to you there. He'll be in 
 the way down country.' 
 
 II 
 
 Some eighteen months afterwards, the doctor, 
 being busy over that great hunt for the comma-
 
 80 • FOR THE FAITH 
 
 shaped bacillus, which, as is told elsewhere, ended 
 in a full stop for the seeker, saw a man come into 
 his verandah with a note 
 
 ' The old swash-buckler, by all that's sinful,' he 
 said to himself. ' Now, what can he want ? ' Ac- 
 cording to the superscription of the letter, it was a 
 ' Civil Surgeon ' ; according to a few almost illegible 
 words inside, help for a suspected case of cholera 
 in the European room of the serai. 
 
 Dr. Taylor, with grave doubts as to being able 
 to supply either of these desires, went into the 
 verandah. 
 
 ' Is it Sonny haha ? ' he asked. 
 
 Dhurm Singh's delight was boundless ; since a 
 saJiib to whom you have once spoken is not as 
 other sahibs ; just as a sahib whom you have once 
 served becomes a demigod — transfigured, immor- 
 tal. Undoubtedly it was the Baba-sahib^ — for unto 
 this semi-religious title the old man had com- 
 pounded his memories and his respect ; who else 
 was it likely to be, seeing that he, Dhurm Singh, 
 
 ^ Lit. Father. Baba is constantly used to a religious teacher.
 
 FOR THE FAITH 81 
 
 had taken service with the master's son ? Un- 
 doubtedly also he was ill, though, in the poor 
 opinion of the dust-like one, it was not cholera — 
 at least it need not have been if the Bctba-sahih 
 had only taken the remedy proposed to him. 
 
 ' Opium ? hey ! ' asked Taylor, who in a huge 
 pith hat which made him look like an animated 
 mushroom, was by this time walking over to the 
 serai, which was but a few hundred yards off. 
 
 The old AMU grinned from ear to ear, the 
 massive curves of his lips stretching like india- 
 rubber. ' The HuzooT knows the great gift of 
 God in the bad places of mind and body. But 
 the Baba-saliih will not have it so. He under- 
 stands not many things through being so young. 
 But he learns, he learns ! ' 
 
 There was a cheerful content in the apology, 
 
 suggestive of the possibility that Dhurm Singh 
 
 had something to do with the teaching. If so, he 
 
 had been an unsafe guide in one point ; for it was 
 
 cholera; cholera of the type which merges into 
 
 a dreary convalescence of malarial fever, during 
 VOL. I G
 
 82 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 which Doctor Taylor saw a good deal, necessarily 
 and unnecessarily, of his old cabin companion ; 
 thus renewing a friendship which, like the 
 majority of those struck up on board ship, would 
 have been forgotten but for an accident — the 
 accident of his doing civil duty for a colleague 
 during ten days' leave. 
 
 ' Civil Surgeon, indeed ! ' he would say, as he 
 sat on the edge of the bed amusing Sonny haha 
 when the latter began to pull round. ' Deuce take 
 me if I could be that to save my life ! One of my 
 patients the other day said I was the most un- 
 civil person calling himself a gentleman she ever 
 came across, just because I told her she couldn't 
 expect her liver to act if she lived the life of a 
 Strasburg goose. " Liver ! " she cried, " why, 
 doctor, it's all heart that is the matter with me." 
 Now, my dear boy, can you tell me why that 
 unfortunate viscus, the liver, has got into such 
 disrepute ? You may tell a patient every other 
 organ in the body is in a disgraceful state of dis- 
 repair, but if you hint at bile it's no use trying to
 
 FOE THE FAITH 83 
 
 be a popular physician. Stick to the heart 1 
 that's my acMce to a youngster entering the hsts. 
 Both for the healer and the healed it is ennobhng. 
 Xow you, for instance 1 you will put it all down 
 to your ardent affection for your fellow-man ; but 
 what the deyil haye you done with your muscle, 
 my dear fellow ? Oh, I know ! you have been doing 
 the ddl-ohdt^ trick, in order to show your sympathy 
 with the people, and to assimilate your wants to 
 theii^s, so that in some occult way they are to 
 assimilate their religious behefs to yours. Lordy, 
 Lordy, what an odd creature man is 1 But you 
 didn't get old Dhurm Singh to give up his kid 
 pv.llao, I'll go bail. Xow, he looks fit — more like 
 your Church Militant business than you do. 
 
 'I'ye — I'ye giyen tip the Army,' said Sonny 
 haha, after an embarrassed pause. 
 
 And Dr. Taylor actually refrained from asking 
 why, or from saying he was glad to hear it ; for 
 there was a puzzled, pained look in his patient's 
 face, which, like any other unfayourable symptom 
 
 ^ Lit. rice and lentil. A catchword for native food.
 
 84 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 had to be attended to at once. In the verandah, 
 however, he commented on the news to Dhurm 
 Singh, who with his turban off and his long white 
 hair coiled round the high wooden comb like any 
 woman's, was putting an extra fine polish to his 
 sword to while away the time. 
 
 ' Huzoor ! it is true. It did not suit us. I 
 told the Baba-sahib so from the beginning. They 
 were not of his caste. As the Protector may see, 
 I did all in my power. I set aside the steel 
 bracelets and the quoits. I refrained myself to 
 humility and carried a tambourine, but to no pur- 
 pose. It did not suit. So now, praise be to the 
 Lord, we have taken "jnnson " again, and the Baha 
 is to serve the Big Ldt-padre (bishop) according 
 to huJcm (orders), as all the padre sahibs do.' 
 
 As he drove home, the doctor decided that he 
 would gladly give a month's pay to know the 
 history of the past year and a half. The very 
 imagination of it made him smile. Yet there must 
 have been more than mere laughter in his thoughts, 
 for even when the lad grew strong enough to re-
 
 FOR THE FAITH 85 
 
 sume the arguments which had begun in the cabin, 
 the doctor never tried to force his confidence. And 
 Sonny labct was reserved on some points. But the 
 enthusiasm, and the fervour, and the faith were 
 strong in him as ever, though the angelic voice 
 now busied itself with Hymns Ancient and 
 Modern ; especially the Ancient. For, face to face 
 with the Eig-Yedas,the advantages of unquestioned 
 authority had begun to show themselves. 
 
 There is no need to repeat the arguments on 
 either side ; they are easily imagined, given the 
 characters of the arguers. Nor is it difficult to 
 imagine the grip of hands when they parted. 
 One of them, no doubt, said somethmg about the 
 other not being far from a certain kingdom, and 
 the saying was not resented, though, no doubt, 
 the hearer laughed softly over the comma-shaped 
 hacillus as he watched Sonny haha and the old 
 swash-buckler set off together to the wilderness 
 again. The former to itinerate from village to 
 village, learning the language and lives of the 
 people he hoped by and by to convert; the
 
 86 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 latter, presumably, to complete the education he 
 had begun. They were an odd couple. 
 
 ' Ten to one on the swash-buckler,' thought the 
 doctor ; ' he is a fine old chap.' 
 
 Christmas had come and gone ere Sonny hdba 
 reappeared in civilised society. When he did so 
 he looked weather-beaten and yet spruce — the 
 natural result on a healthy young Englishman of 
 combined exposure to sunshine and a good 
 washerman. 
 
 ' Hullo ! ' cried the doctor cheerily, ' back 
 again in boiled shirts, I see ! Find 'em a bit 
 stiff, I expect, after kurtas and dliotees. The 
 natives know how to dress comfortably at any 
 rate.' 
 
 Sonny haha blushed under his bronze and 
 hesitated. 'The fact is,' he said with an effort, 
 ' I did not, after all, adopt native costume as I 
 intended, or perhaps,' — here a faint smile obtruded 
 itself — ' I might say it wouldn't adopt me. You 
 see, to enter into details, I couldn't exactly give 
 up — a — a night shirt, or that sort of thing, you
 
 FOR THE FAITH 87 
 
 know — now could I? And what with being a 
 very sound sleeper, and sleeping in public places 
 — serais and dhurmsdlas, — or out in the open — 
 somehow my day clothes were always being stolen. 
 As soon as ever I got a new outfit it disappeared, 
 until at last Dhurm Singh said — ' 
 ' Yes ! what did Dhurm Singh say ? ' 
 'That it was very peculiar, and that as the 
 thieves didn't seem to fancy my English clothes 
 it might be — more economical — -' Here a half- 
 embarrassed laugh finally interrupted the sen- 
 tence. ' I don't think I was sorry,' went on the 
 speaker hastily ; ' I found out afterwards that the 
 people don't understand it. One old fellow asked 
 me why it was that though a native convert 
 always had to wear trousers lilvc the saJiib-logue, 
 the " missen " people preferred to preach without 
 them? Of course it was an exaggeration both 
 ways, but the more I see of these people, the more 
 necessary it seems to me that we should be our- 
 selves armed at all points before beginning the 
 attack. And then their poverty, their patience,
 
 88 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 the insanitary conditions — the needless suffering ! 
 Surely before we can touch their minds — ' 
 
 ' I know/ broke in the doctor cynically. ' Medi- 
 cal missions, et - cetera ; so it has come to that 
 already, has it, old chap ? ' 
 
 'I don't know what you mean by its having 
 come to that,' retorted Sonny at a white heat ; 
 'but if you think it right to live in the lap 
 of luxury while these brothers and sisters of 
 ours — ' 
 
 So the arguments began again, more fiercely 
 than ever, for the two fought at closer quarters, — 
 so close that ofttimes the doctor had to retreat 
 from his own position and seek another, because 
 Sonny haba had already entrenched himself 
 therein; the which is a direful offence, rousmg 
 determined resistance in a real argufier. 
 
 Despite this, Sonny haha rented a room in the 
 doctor's house, and shared the doctor's dinners and 
 library and hospital after the easy Indian fashion, 
 while Dhurm Singh swaggered about among the 
 dispensary badge-wearers, explaining at full length
 
 FOR THE FAITH 89 
 
 why he did not wear a badge like the rest of 
 them. His sahib had not yet settled which 
 branch of the public service he would exalt by 
 his presence. He was young, doubtless, as yet, 
 but he made strides. Two years ago he had 
 found him in a very poor ' naukeri ' (service), in 
 which he paid all the rupees and no one gave him 
 anything; a topsy-turvy arrangement: not that 
 his sahib needed the paisas. He was rich as a 
 nawab. Then he thought of being a p)C('dre sahib ; 
 now it was clodore department, but in his, Dhurm 
 Singh's opinion, that was not much either. Per- 
 sonally he would just as soon wear no badge, as 
 one of those with ' Charitable Dispensary ' on it. 
 But only God knew where the Baba-sahib might 
 end ; at Sunla, as ' burra Lett sahib! no doubt. 
 Till then it was more dignified to refrain from 
 ignoble badges of which afterwards one might be 
 ashamed. 
 
 And while he talked in this fashion he sat in 
 the sunshine combing his long hair, and piously 
 wondering how folk could defile their insides with
 
 90 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 tobacco. Then he would stroll off into the 
 shadow and bring out the black lump of dreams. 
 Yet if Sonny hctbct came out into the verandah 
 calling after the Indian fashion for some one, the 
 broad northern accent was always ready with its 
 ' Hiizoor ! ' 
 
 So the months passed in preparations, and the 
 angelic voice might have been heard to sing ' Lead, 
 kindly Light ' more often than any other hymn in 
 the book. About this time, also. Sonny hciba, 
 speaking of Dhurm Singh and his ways, used to 
 quote in rather a patronising manner a certain 
 text regarding those who might expect to be 
 beaten with few stripes, — a speech which roused 
 the doctor to vigorous retort. He had observed, 
 he said, that the remark held good about most 
 honest, healthy men who could play singlestick. 
 
 The fact being, however, that Sonny hdba was 
 beginning to get obstinate, as is only natural 
 when a man passes five -and -twenty. It was 
 time, he felt, to begin work in earnest ; for the 
 enthusiasm and the faith and the fervour were as
 
 FOR THE FAITH 91 
 
 hot as ever in him still. Looking back on the 
 last three years, he hardly understood why he had 
 done so little. 
 
 ' There seems so much to learn before one can 
 even begin on the problem;' he sighed, ' and then, 
 dear as the old man is, I really think Dhurm 
 Singh is a drawback. I hoped when we left the 
 Army — but indeed, Taylor, I think even you will 
 allow that he is hardly the sort of man for a 
 missionary's servant.' 
 
 ' Well, I don't know that I should classify him 
 under that head : but then,' he paused, thinking, 
 perhaps, that when all was said and done the 
 master was no more fit for the place than the 
 servant. 
 
 ' I'm glad you agree with me,' put in Sonny 
 eagerly, ' for I've quite made up my mind to a 
 change. You have no idea how the old fellow 
 hectors over getting me a pint of milk or a couple 
 of eggs. You would think I was about to loot a 
 whole village. I must own that I invariably get 
 what I want — that, too, without the least unplea-
 
 92 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 santness, but it is not edifying. Not the sort of 
 thing that ought to go on. Then his habit of 
 eating opium. It does not seem to hurt him, I 
 own ; but that again is not what it ought to be. 
 It is bad enough to belong to a race who, while 
 they go about with words of condemnation on 
 their lips — ' 
 
 ' Pardon me,' murmured the doctor, ' I pass — ' 
 
 ' — on their lips, are at the same time 
 battening on the proceeds of an infamous mono- 
 poly of a drug dealing death and disease to a 
 whole continent.' 
 
 ' One-third of one per cent of the total popu- 
 lation,' murmured the doctor again. 
 
 ' You forget the opium grown in China,' put in 
 Sonny with great heat. 
 
 * My dear fellow, isn't there a story somewhere 
 about the Emperor of China's clothes ? If I 
 remember right he forgot to put 'em on, and then 
 every one was afraid to tell him he was naked. 
 It appears to me that in this opium business the 
 good gentleman hasn't a rag of reason for com-
 
 FOR THE FAITH 93 
 
 plaint, but that you are all afraid to say so. If 
 we can prevent our subjects from growing poppy 
 except under supervision, why can't he ? It isn't 
 Jonah's gourd, but a three month crop.' 
 
 Sonny haba began to walk up and down the 
 room excitedly. ' It is perfectly inexplicable to 
 me how a man like you — ' 
 
 ' Excuse me,' interrupted the doctor. ' I'll 
 explain. I'm forty-four years of age. Two-and- 
 twenty years of that I hved in a parish in Scotland 
 where every decent, respectable body would have 
 thought shame to himself if he didn't have more 
 whisky than he could carry on market days. The 
 other two-and-twenty I've spent in India. Out 
 of cantonments, where they've learnt the trick 
 from us, I only remember having met two drunk 
 men in all those years, and though I see more of 
 the natives than most people, I can only caU to 
 mind three who might be said to have suffered 
 seriously from the effects of opium.^ But it is a 
 subject which it is quite useless to discuss. It 
 
 1 A fact.
 
 94 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 turns on a question of heredity, like most things. 
 The Indo-Germanic races never have taken and 
 never will take to narcotics, so naturally they abuse 
 them — and drink instead. Chacun a son gout! 
 
 'And mine is to give poor old Dhurm Singh 
 an extra pension when I go itinerating, and send 
 him back to end his days in peace in his village.' 
 
 The doctor whistled, ' Don't you wish you 
 may get him to do it ? ' 
 
 ' He must if he is a hindrance to the work — ' 
 
 ' And if your work is a hindrance to him ? 
 That's what it comes to all round. He was put 
 in charge of you, and mark my words, Dhurm 
 Singh will do it dhitrm ndl until he goes to settle 
 the vexed question.' 
 
 ' What vexed question ? ' 
 
 ' Whether his work or yours was the better.' 
 
 III. 
 
 Dhurm Singh ? ' 
 Huzoor!
 
 FOE THE FAITH 9 5 
 
 After five-and-twenty years the same appeal — 
 the same reply. But on that May night and July 
 day neither the man nor the \\ oman had any doubt 
 as to what was to come next ; the universe held 
 no possibility save ' the mem sahib ' or ' Sonny 
 hcibcL But the latter, now it came to his turn, 
 hesitated ; even while he was conscious that to a 
 well-balanced mind capable of weighing advantage 
 and disadvantage fairly, there ought to be no 
 difficulty in telling any one that you had no further 
 need for his services. The recollection of certain 
 thin-lipped, dignified, self-respecting conversations 
 overheard at home sprang to memory ob- 
 trusively. ' Then, Mary Ann, it had better be 
 this day month.' ' Yes, ma'am, this day month, 
 if you please ; and if you please, ma'am, Wednes- 
 days and Saturdays from eleven till one, if con- 
 venient, for a character.' 
 
 But things were different somehow in this 
 heathen country, which was so backward in 
 education, so ignorant of liberty, equality, and — 
 ahem !
 
 96 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 ' Dhurm Singh,' began Sonny once more rather 
 hurriedly. 
 
 ' Kihzoor! 
 
 ' I — I am going to make a complete change of 
 plan, Dhurm Singh. I — I am going to begin work 
 on a new principle. I — I am going to start in 
 another part of the country where I shall not re- 
 quire — er — many things I have hitherto required.' 
 He paused, well satisfied at his plunge in medias res. 
 
 Dhurm Singh, standing attention at the door, 
 smiled approvingly. ' It is a good word, Huzoor. 
 So said the Gurus also. When do we start ? ' 
 
 Half an hour afterwards Sonny hciba, in rather 
 a shamefaced manner, told the doctor that, after 
 all, he had come to the conclusion it would be 
 better not to dismiss Dhurm Singh. To begin 
 with, the village children delighted in his tales, 
 and then — it was a triviality, no doubt, perhaps 
 in a measure a giving in to prejudice — the elders 
 certainly set store by position ; for instance, they 
 were always more ready to listen to him if the 
 old swash -buckler had had an opportunity of
 
 FOR THE FAITH 97 
 
 giving the family history, embellishments and all. 
 In addition Dhurm Singh had promised to amend 
 his ways generally ; to spend his days in com- 
 pounding pills and potions instead of hectoring 
 about. Finally, he had agreed to an allowance of 
 opium, swearing dhurm ndl to take no more than 
 was served out by the master. 
 
 ' Of course,' said Sonny haha at this juncture, 
 with a considerate superiority which raised every 
 atom of the doctor's original sin, ' I shall be 
 careful, I shall not dock it too much at once ; but 
 in the course of a year or two I hope to break him 
 entirely of this most pernicious habit.' 
 
 ' Which has never done him or his surround- 
 ings the least harm,' growled Taylor savagely. 
 ' Upon my soul, I begin to wish I were five-and- 
 twenty again, if only that I might be as cock-sure 
 of being right about everything as you are. As it 
 is, even the hacillus — ' He wrinkled his eyes over 
 the microscope once more, and did not finish his 
 sentence. 
 
 After this Dhurm Singh might have been seen 
 
 VOL. I H
 
 98 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 any day of the week in the dispensary verandah 
 grounding away vigorously with pestle and mortar 
 at unsavoury medicaments, rolling pills under his 
 flexible brown fingers, or polishing up surgical 
 instruments with all the fervour bestowed of yore 
 on the old sword. 
 
 ' Lo ! if the Baba-sahih cares not for being a big 
 Hdkm (magistrate, ruler), sure the next best thing 
 is to be a big Hakeem (doctor),' he would say, 
 smiling simply at his own wit. And doth not the 
 Guru say, " Fight with no weapon but the sword 
 of the Spirit " ? Besides, when I feel like fighting I 
 can put an edge to the knives or pound harder 
 with the pestle. God knows they may both do 
 more damage than a sabre. Then the rolling of 
 pills is ever the first step towards dream-getting. 
 Thus in all ways,I,Dhurm Singh, Sikh, ^^.-diiffadar, 
 pinson-iuallah, and AMU, am consoled. But there ! 
 God is good to the Sikh. Know you that He never 
 made an ugly one yet ? ' 
 
 This was a favourite boast of the old man's, 
 backed always, should doubts be expressed, by
 
 FOR THE FAITH 99 
 
 a modest appeal to his own looks, joined to an 
 assertion — which, by the way, was perfectly true — 
 that he was the meanest-looking of ten brothers. 
 
 So, in due season, the doctor once more watched 
 the odd couple pass out together into the wilder- 
 ness ; and this time, noticing the change in Sonny 
 haba, and remembering the raw lad who had been 
 his cabin companion, he, so to speak, put his whole 
 pile on Dhurm Singh — unless the boy killed him 
 with philanthropy. 
 
 The rains, after an unusually heavy fall, had 
 ceased early, the result being an epidemic of 
 autumnal fever. Xow the cholera may kill its 
 thousands, but year by year, with every now and 
 again a sort of jubilee over its own strength, 
 malaria kills its tens of thousands quietly, un- 
 ostentatiously ; so quietly, that it is only when 
 the officer in charge of a district finds himself 
 during his cold weather camp deciding the rival 
 claims to hereditary offices day after day in village 
 after village, that even he realises how widely the 
 archangel Azrael has spread his wings over the
 
 100 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 people. The doctor, however, judging simply by 
 the weather, sent Sonny into the jungles well 
 supplied with that carmine-tinted quinine which 
 carries the fact of its being Government property 
 in its colour : a useless attempt to prevent the 
 sale of charity in a land where the regulation five 
 grain powder is as much a part of the currency as 
 a two anna bit. Well supplied, yet at the same 
 time with cautions not to be over generous except 
 in genuine cases. Let him stick to the country 
 medicines as prophylactics. Opium and aconite 
 were to be had for the buying, and if he did 
 wander into the low jungles close to the hills, and 
 if he could be tolerant, and learn not to despise old 
 wisdom, let him prescribe the former in preference 
 to the latter, — though perhaps that was too much 
 to expect from a five-and-twenty-year-old who 
 was cock-sure he knew best. 
 
 ' I know nothing of myself,' replied Sonny in 
 all seriousness. 'The Eternal Eight decides. 
 There lies the difference between you and me — 
 pardon me if T say between the Christian and the
 
 FOR THE FAITH 101 
 
 Unbeliever. You trust to your finite mind, I to 
 Something which is and was, which cannot err.' 
 
 And Dhurm Singh, gleefully employed in turn- 
 ing a cash transport mule with its fixings into a 
 perambulating dispensary, was keeping up his 
 character of devotee by repeating verses from the 
 Adhee Ghmnfh ^ in sing-song ; his round, mellow 
 voice echoing out through the sunshine — 
 
 'Remember, man, the primal truth — the Truth 
 
 ere the world began. 
 The Truth \\'hich is and the Truth Avhich must 
 
 remain. 
 How can this Truth be told ; save by doing the will 
 
 of the Lord 1 ' 
 
 'Listen!' said Taylor, and Sonny haha moved 
 uneasily in his chair. 
 
 When these same preparations were complete, 
 the old man's delight was huge, and he drove the 
 mule forth to the wilderness before him with 
 much futile waving of the stick which had re- 
 placed the sword. Even over that abnegation he 
 was cheerful. 
 
 1 The Sikh Bible.
 
 102 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 ' Lo ! I am turned a dliuncli-ivallah ^ in mine 
 old age as becomes the pious-minded. Ari! 
 thou misbegotten offspring of a mixed race 
 doomed to childless extinction, wilt stray from 
 the beaten path ! Wouldst steal the corn of 
 others, when thy master is a missen sahib, and thy 
 tender a devotee ? May the uttermost — ' 
 
 Then to Sonny's pained reproof he would reply, 
 cheerfully as ever, that he had understood the 
 refraining of his tongue from abuse was to be to- 
 wards those born of Adam, and this was not even 
 a God-created thing, but a nondescript invented by 
 the sahih-logiie. 
 
 Cheerful always; even when, as time went 
 on, his daily pills of opium were mixed with 
 quinine. He sat and compounded them him- 
 self dhurm ncU, keeping no grain of the beloved 
 dream-giver from the sacrilegious mixture, and 
 telling the full tale of the 'Jiat pillulce ' into the 
 master's locked medicine chest, whence they were 
 doled out daily. 
 
 ^ Lit. stick-bearer, but applied always to wanderiug devotees 
 who tramp the country living on alms.
 
 FOR THE FAITH 103 
 
 For the first month or more, everything went 
 smoothly. Xever before had Sonny hala had 
 such attentive listeners to the great truths he ex- 
 pounded as a preliminary to his other work ; 
 never before had he felt that he was really on the 
 right tack, really had his opportunity of a fair 
 hearing. The letters he wrote home to his aunt 
 who, fond woman, had faithfully followed as 
 woman can do, every step in the career of her 
 darling with unswerving confidence, filled that 
 excellent creature with sheer, unalloyed delight. 
 She told all her circle of friends that her nephew 
 had fulfilled her dearest wishes in going in for the 
 medical mission, which was undoubtedly the only 
 way of getting at the poor, dear natives. 
 
 And Sonny, in less emotional fashion, felt this 
 to be so true that he worked as he had never 
 worked before. A sort of feverish desire to 
 utilise every opportunity, to lose no occasion for 
 preaching the great Gospel of Peace came over 
 him, and he spared himself not at all, after the 
 manner of his kind.
 
 104 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 So that sometimes returning tired out in 
 evening from some long tramp, it was a relief to 
 find the old swash-buckler ready with kid jpullao 
 or ' rose chikken,' ^ and to see the tea-kettle swinging 
 over a fire of twigs. Sometimes after they entered 
 the tract of forest-land near the foot of the hills, 
 the indefatigable old poacher would produce a 
 stew of black partridge, and once, Sonny, coming 
 home to the tiny tent late at night, found his 
 henchman keeping an eye on roast pork, and at 
 the same time utilising the flame-light in giving 
 a suspicious clean to the biggest surgical knife. 
 A queer picture seen by the fire, leaping and 
 dancing up into the shadows of a mango grove. 
 
 But one evening Sonny came home with no 
 appetite for dinner, and half an hour afterwards 
 he was blue and shivering in the cold fit of ague. 
 
 ' If the Huzoor would take some of my pills,' 
 said Dhurm Singh wistfully ; ' look at me ! nothing 
 touches me, and, lo ! am I not three times as near 
 the grave as the Baba-saliih .^ ' 
 ^ Roast cliickeii.
 
 FOE THE FAITH 105 
 
 There is no need to describe the scorn 
 which this suggestion met. As for the pills, 
 where would the old sinner be but for the 
 quinine contained therein ? This was nothing 
 but a chill, an isolated attack. He would take 
 an extra dose of the specific and be done with it. 
 
 But the third day, suddenly, in the very middle 
 of an eloquent appeal he felt goose-skin going in 
 thrills down his back, and five minutes after the 
 only sound he could make was the chattering of 
 his teeth. 
 
 ' If the Huzooi\ began Dhurm Singh, but was 
 checked by the frown on the master's face ; for the 
 lad had grit and fire in him. 
 
 Neither of these, however, avail much against a 
 tertian ague, and it was not long before Sonny 
 haha, in the half-querulous, half-hysterical stage 
 before the hot fit merges into perspiration, con- 
 fided with tears to the old swash-buckler that it 
 was no use. He was an accursed beim*'. From 
 the very beginning had it not been so ? And 
 then he retailed garrulously many and many an
 
 106 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 incident of the past three years, forgotten by his 
 retainer, in which something had occurred to mar 
 the smooth working of good luck. Something as 
 often as not, it struck the listener, to be referred 
 to his own share in the business. To the speaker 
 it was otherwise. He was not fit for the work ; he 
 was of no account, and now when at long last the 
 time had come, when he felt that his hand was on 
 the plough — 
 
 ' It is time the Baba-saldh took his quinine,' 
 remarked Dhurm Singh sagely, unsympathetically. 
 'If the Huzoor will give the keys of the chest, 
 this dust-like one will bring the medicine — dhurm 
 ndl. The last words came softly, half to himself, 
 and an important, self-satisfied smile broadened 
 the open face as he made his choice among the 
 bottles. ' Lo ! there is it,' he continued, laying 
 two pills in the burning hand before passmg his 
 one arm under the burning body, ' but the Huzoor 
 must have faith. Without it medicine is but a 
 bad taste in the moutli. He who believes shall 
 be saved.'
 
 FOR THE FAITH 107 
 
 Perhaps Sonny haba took his advice yet once 
 again, perhaps the quinine got a fair hold of the 
 enemy at last. Certain it is that from the time 
 Dhurm Singh commenced to bring the pills dhurm 
 nctl, the ague began to abate. At the end of a 
 week Sonny haba was eating 'rose chikken' once 
 more with appetite. That evening, as the sun 
 was setting red over the thick brakes of sugar- 
 cane, the old man sat pounding diligently with 
 pestle and mortar wliile he intoned away at the 
 Adhee Grunt' h — 
 
 ' God asks no man of his birth, 
 He asks him what he has done, 
 Since all are the seed of God, 
 Lo I what is the world but clay, 
 Tho' the pots are of many moulds,' 
 
 And Sonny haha, lying out in the shade bhss- 
 fully conscious that he was getting better, nay, 
 that he was better, raised himself on one arm and 
 looked over with moist eyes to the old man. 
 ' What are you doing, Dhurm Singh ? ' 
 ' This slave makes pills. The Huzoor hath 
 eaten so manv, and those of the dust-like one
 
 108 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 have given out also. Lo ! I fill the bottles against 
 the return of the Baha-sahih to his medicine 
 chest.' 
 
 * But, I say ! are you sure you have made them 
 right ? ' 
 
 ' The Huzoor may rest satisfied. Five grains 
 of the blessed medicine for the master, and the 
 other as before. It is dliurm nctl, Hitzoor! 
 
 ' So you call it a blessed medicine now, Dhurm 
 Singh ? ' 
 
 ' Wherefore not, since the master is better ? ' 
 
 ' Well ! the addition of that small quantity of 
 ipecacuanha which I began — let me see — that day 
 when I was so bad, certainly had a marvellous 
 effect. I shall write and tell Taylor about it ; 
 he was inclined to sneer at the idea just because 
 he didn't suggest it. Doctors are awfully jealous 
 of each other. That's the worst of them.' 
 
 These remarks were made mostly for his own 
 benefit, as he lay comfortably watching the stars 
 come out one by one as the daylight died. 
 
 It was that same night that Dhurm Singh
 
 FOR THE FAITH 109 
 
 had his first go of ague. It shook him as a sharp 
 attack of malarious fever does shake a native past 
 his prime, and Sonny hciba, amid his regrets, could 
 not avoid a certain elation. 
 
 ' So much for opium,' he said, and yet in his 
 heart of hearts a fear gained ground that perhaps 
 he might have been over rapid in diminishing the 
 dose. Now that the old man was actually ill, 
 it seemed unkind to deny him comfort ; so an 
 addition was made to the number of pills, thus 
 increasing the amount both of opium and quinine. 
 
 It was more than a month later that a small 
 procession of two men carrying a string bed on 
 their heads, and one man drivmg a pack mule, 
 turned into the dispensary compound. 
 
 ' It is the old man,' said Sonny haha to the 
 doctor, 'and I'm afraid — ' he paused before the 
 break in his own voice. ' It was that terai land. 
 I was as bad as could be, and thought I should 
 have to give up ; but, under Providence, quinine 
 and ipec. pulled me round to do the best work I 
 have ever done in my life. But he — he would
 
 110 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 stick to the opium, and then I'm afraid that at 
 first I hardly noticed — you see he went round as 
 usual, bragging he was better. So I didn't think 
 — the work was so absorbing, and I myself felt so 
 fit. Otherwise, I might have gone to a healthier 
 part, though, of course, the impression w^ould not 
 have been so good. Still — it came upon me quite 
 by surprise three days ago — and — and I've brought 
 him in by forced marches. You — ' The voice 
 failed again. Indeed, there was no need for more, 
 the doctor being already on his knees by the bed 
 making his examination. Suddenly he looked up. 
 
 ' Why the devil did you stop his opium, you 
 young fool ? Here, Boota Mull, the syringe and a 
 disc of morphia — sharp. But, after all, what does 
 anything matter so long as you save your own 
 soul alive !' 
 
 Sonny haha, looking very white, drew himself 
 up into dignity. ' We can discuss that question 
 by and by, Dr. Taylor. In the meantime, let me 
 warn you, that the man has already had ten grains 
 of opium in the last twenty-four hours.'
 
 FOR THE FAITH 111 
 
 The doctor's quick hands were at the closed 
 eyelids. ' Ten grains — bosh 1 But, as you say, 
 those questions can be settled by and by — when 
 he is dead, if you Like.' 
 
 Sonny haba!s face had grown whiter still. ' I 
 tell you he has had the opium — I gave it to hini 
 myself — I was afraid — ' he paused abruptly, and 
 the doctor looking up shot a rapid glance of 
 negation towards him. 
 
 ' There's a mistake — or else. It doesn't matter 
 now, at any rate. The thing is done.' 
 
 But Sonny haha did not hear the latter words, 
 he was beside the mule, fumbling hastily in the 
 travelling dispensary, of which the old man had 
 been so proud, for the medicine chest. His hands 
 trembled as he brought it back, and Dr. Taylor, 
 his face unseen, yet with its keenness shown in 
 every movement of the capable hands busy over 
 the morphia, heard an odd sound — something be- 
 tween a gasp and a cry — behind him. Then 
 some one came and knelt down at the other side 
 of the bed.
 
 112 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 ' Dhurm Singh ! ' 
 But there was no answer. 
 
 'Dhurm Singh, you can tell them it was 
 dhurm ndl, and that I killed you.' 
 
 ' Killed him — fudge ! Though, upon my soul, 
 it would serve you right if you had. So the old 
 sinner changed the pills, and it wasn't the ipec. 
 after all. Most reprehensible practice, and, upon 
 my soul, it would serve him right if he did die. 
 Now — don't be a fool, man ! I tell you he shan't 
 die — I won't let him die. Besides, he can't die — 
 it's impossible — absolutely impossible.' 
 
 Despite his despair and dejection, the young 
 man gave a wan smile at the other's vehemence. 
 
 ' And why ? ' 
 
 ' Because of you, naturally. You don't suppose 
 that you're fit to be trusted alone with a medicine 
 chest, do you ? Boota Mull, if you don't hurry 
 up with that turpentine and the brandy mixture 
 111 report you. So it wasn't the ipec. after all 1 
 I'm glad of that.'
 
 FOR THE FAITH 113 
 
 In after years the young fellow used to deny 
 strenuously that it had been the opium either. 
 Plainly and palpably he had been cured of his 
 fever ' by faith.' And as for Dhurm Singh ? 
 What the doctor said was true ; he could not be 
 spared as yet. How could he be spared when even 
 now from the verandah came a woman's voice, 
 soft, confident — 
 
 ' Dhurm Singh, Sonny bahcL 
 
 ' Huzoor ! dhurm ncd! 
 
 And any one looking out might have seen a 
 very old man, gorgeous in scarlet raiment, decked 
 with golden lace and golden curls, as a child's 
 head nestled up against a soHtary arm, and a 
 child's fingers played with the solitary medal, or 
 tugged unavailingly at the hilt of the old sword. 
 
 ' The Huzoor is too young,' would come the 
 
 broad, arrogant voice, ' but he will learn — he will 
 
 learn. Even a Sikh is made, not born. He must 
 
 wait till the years bring the Sacred Steel. Let 
 
 the Huzoor rest awhile peacefully, and old Dhurm 
 
 will sing to him.' 
 
 VOL. I I
 
 114 FOR THE FAITH 
 
 Then there would be a surreptitious swallowing 
 of a pill before the drowsy chant began. 
 
 ' He is of the Khdlsa ^ 
 Who combats in the van, 
 Who gives in charity, 
 Who loves the Poor. 
 
 He is of the KMlsa 
 
 Whose mind is set on God, 
 
 Who never fears though often overcome, 
 
 Knowing all men created of one God. 
 
 He is of the Khdlsa 
 
 Who lives in arms, 
 
 Who combats with the wrong. 
 
 Who keeps — the — faith — ' 
 
 So there would be a silence broken only by 
 the even breathing of the old man and the child. 
 
 For Sonny haha and his wife, watching the 
 scene from within, only looked into each other's 
 eyes and said nothing. 
 
 ^ The Sikh Commomvcalth.
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 ' According to established precedent it is reported, 
 under section so and so, that one Buddha Singh 
 of Kidderjana having died, his rightful heirs in- 
 herit.' The court-reader's voice hurried the liquid 
 Urdu syllables into long, sleepy cadences like the 
 drone of a humble-bee entangled in the swaying 
 punkah overhead. Backwards and forwards, rising 
 and falling, the rhythm seemed to l^ecome part of 
 me, until the colourless reports were a monotonous 
 lullaby, and each wave of sound and motion bore 
 me farther from earth, nearer to the land of 
 dreams. Ah ! if the right people always inherited, 
 and my old uncle received ticket -of- leave from 
 the gout, I might afford furlough, and stand once 
 more on that big boulder at the foot of the One-
 
 116 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 stone pool waiting for a new ring of light to show 
 on the dark eddy by the far side, — a ring with a 
 swirl and a gleam of silver scales in the centre, a 
 tightening line under the finger, till the reel went 
 whirr-rr-rr-rr ! It was a lovely dream while it 
 lasted. 
 
 ' According to established precedent, the canal- 
 officer reports, under section so-and-so, that certain 
 rebellious persons in Chori-pani have opened the 
 sluices of the cut, and taken water that did not 
 belong to them.' The heather-sweet breeze off 
 the One-stone pool ceased to blgw, and I was back, 
 with the punkah, in the humanity -laden atmo- 
 sphere of the court-house, where even the mos- 
 quitoes were glutted, and the lizards, hanging 
 head downwards on the wall, looked as if they 
 had congestion of the brain. Stealing water! 
 Poor wretches, who could blame them with their 
 crops withering in the June sun and the sluice- 
 doors within reach ? Even a juicy apple on a hot 
 day is irresistible, despite Farmer Smith's big dog 
 watching from below, while you sit on the lower
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 117 
 
 branch, and Jerry sits on the upper, eating all the 
 ripe fruit just to pass the time, and thanking 
 Providence meanwhile for making you Christian 
 children in a cider- country ! 
 
 'According to established precedent it is re- 
 ported, under section so-and-so, that the devil was 
 born three days ago in village Hairan- wallah. 
 Orders are requested. Meanwhile the cJioivkidar 
 [watchman] remains watching the same.' Startled 
 into wakefuLaess, I looked sharply to see if the 
 reader had not been nodding in his turn ; but my 
 alertness merely produced a respectful iteration 
 of the paragraph, which showed all too clearly my 
 subordinate's explanation of the sudden display 
 of attention. 
 
 The suspicion of sleep is always irritating. 
 ' Sarishtadar / ' [clerk of the Court] I began in 
 English, ' what the de\al ? ' 
 
 ' Nossir,' interrupted the reader suavely in the 
 same language, ' pardon the suggestion, sir, but the 
 devil is somewhat free translation, sir. In 
 Dictionary hhiU (the word used, sir,) equals an f/z-
 
 118 THE RHUT-BABY 
 
 definite devil, thUvS a devil, a fiend, a imp — pardon 
 the indiscretion, sir ! an imp.' 
 
 A glow of proud humility at his own quick 
 detection of these trivial errors filled up the pause 
 which followed, while the punkah went on swing- 
 ing, and I sat wondering if I were asleep or awake. 
 Finally the sarishtadar dipped his pen in the ink, 
 fluttered the superfluous moisture on the carpet, 
 and suggested deferentially that the chowkidar 
 was waiting for orders. A sudden curiosity as to 
 what his self-complacent brain, surcharged with 
 Western culture, would do with the situation 
 made me reply curtly, ' The usual orders.' 
 
 I managed to forbear laughing in the grave face 
 raised to mine in deprecating apology. ' I am 
 unable, sir,' he said after a pause, ' to recall, at the 
 present moment, any section, penal or civil, suit- 
 able to occasion. Would you kindly jog memory, 
 sir, by suggesting if it is under judicial or adminis- 
 trative heads ? Or perhaps,' he added, as a bright 
 after-thought, ' it is political job.' Then, I regret 
 to say, T went off into yells of unseemly mirth, as
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 119 
 
 most Englishmen have to do at times over the 
 portentous solemnity of the Aryan brother. 
 
 There was a stir in the verandah, a sudden 
 waking to renewed effort on the part of the 
 punkah coolie, resulting in a general breeziness. 
 Or was it that Terence O'EeiUy, our young Irish 
 doctor, as he came in to the darkened Court, brought 
 with him a thought of fresh air, a remembrance of 
 Nature in her sunniest, most lovable moods ? He 
 invariably suggested such things to me at any rate, 
 and as he paused in astonishment at my indecorous 
 occupation, I thought once more that it was 
 a pleasure simply to look at him. His face 
 sympathised promptly with the unknown joke. 
 * Whwhat the diwle are ye laughing at, — me ? ' he 
 asked in a rich brogue as he seated himself astride 
 a chair, in which equestrian position his dandy 
 costume for polo showed to great advantage. 
 
 Nero fiddling over the flames of Eome is sym- 
 pathy itself compared to the indifference with 
 which we often speak the first lines of a coming 
 tragedy in every-day life. So it was with a jest
 
 120 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 that I introduced Terence O'Keilly to the existence 
 of the hJiut-hsibj, and in so doing became instantly 
 aware that he surpassed me in other things besides 
 good looks. He could scarcely be said to become 
 grave, for to lose brightness would have been to 
 lose the essence of the man, but his expression 
 grew to a still more vivid reflex of his mind. 
 ' 'Twill be one of those poor little craytures that 
 come into this worrld God knows why/ he said 
 with an infinite tenderness of voice. ' Ten to wan 
 'tis better it should die, fifty to wan I can do 
 nothing to help it, but I'll ride over and see anny- 
 how.' 
 
 The sarishtadar laid aside his pen somewhat 
 mournfully, the practical being out of his line ; 
 while I, smitten by admiration into immediate re- 
 gret at my own indifference, murmured something 
 about having thought of going over next morning. 
 
 'There's no time loike the present, my dear 
 fellow,' he replied buoyantly. ' The pony's at the 
 door, and sure I'm got up for riding annyhow ; 
 and as he spoke he stretched out his long legs, and
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 121 
 
 surveyed their immaculate boots and breeches 
 critically. 
 
 'And what will your team do without their 
 best forward ? ' I asked, feeling a certain cap- 
 tiousness at his prompt decision. 
 
 ' Get along with your blarney ! Sure it's practis- 
 ing, and you can take my place at that anny day ; 
 indeed 'twas to fetch you I ventured into the dock, 
 for whin I caught a glimpse of your face at the 
 jail this morning I said to meself, " Terence, me 
 bhoy, that's a case of polo, or blue pill, for by the 
 powers his liver's not acting." So 'twas to hound 
 you into exercise I came annyhow.' 
 
 A feverish desire to amend and excuse my own 
 lukewarmness shot up through the loophole his 
 words afforded. " To tell the truth, I was feeling a 
 bit slack ; but if you'll wait five minutes while I 
 slip over to the bungalow and change my clothes, 
 I'll ride with you to Hairan-wallah. It will be 
 better for me than polo ; I might get over-heated, 
 you know.' 
 
 "Tis o\eT-eating, not OYeT-heating that's the
 
 122 • THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 matter with you, me bhoy,' he replied coolly ; ' but 
 I'm proud, — and by the powers ! ' he added, starting 
 up in great excitment, ' you shall ride my pony ; I 
 call him Blue Pill, for he's better than wan anny 
 day ; and while you're dressing I'll send me syce 
 round for the Lily of Killarney. I've a bet on her 
 at the gymkhana next Monday, and we'll try her 
 on the quiet against the stable.' 
 
 Half an hour afterwards I was enjoying plen- 
 teous exercise, and it seemed to me, far behind, as if 
 the Lily — a great black beast without a single white 
 hair on her — was trying to buck Terence over into 
 the saffron-coloured horizon, as she went along in 
 a series of wild bounds. He came back to me, 
 however, after a time, as fresh as paint ; but the 
 mare, with head down and heaving flanks, appeared 
 to have had enough of it. 
 
 ' 'Tis a pity the faymale sex is so narvous,' he said 
 casually. ' Ye can't hold 'em responsible for anny- 
 thing ; but if it wasn't for hysteria they'd be angels 
 entirely. She has the paces of wan, annyhow.' 
 
 Fourteen miles of constant canal-cuts, that were
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 123 
 
 a perpetual joy to the doctor and a terror to me, 
 brought us to Hairan-wallah, a large village stand- 
 ing among irrigated fields. Here cautious inquiries 
 for the devil led us to a cluster of mud huts 
 beyond the pale, where the low-caste servants of 
 the community dwelt apart. Before reaching it 
 we were joined by the head-men and their followers, 
 all anxious to explain and excuse the calamity 
 which had befallen their reputation : but as the 
 fear of evil eye had prevented any of them from 
 personally inspecting the fiend, the accounts of its 
 appearance were wildly conflicting. The doctor, 
 indeed, refused to listen to them, on the ground 
 that it was sheer waste of time, and rode along 
 affably discussing the crops with an aged patriarch. 
 His manner changed, however, when we were re- 
 quested to dismount, and he led the way into the en- 
 closure where, guarded by the police cliowkidar, the 
 devil-baby lay awaiting Government orders. The 
 courtyard was hung round with coloured thread, 
 old iron, and other devices against witchcraft, 
 and a group of low-caste men and women were hud-
 
 124 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 died up dejectedly in one corner. So far the crowd 
 followed us, but when some of the reputed rela- 
 tions showed us into a dark out-house at the further 
 end, even curiosity failed to prevent a visible 
 hanging-back. Blinded by the change from the 
 glare outside, I could at first see nothing but my 
 companion's tall form bending over a bundle of 
 rags on a low stool, beside which a half-naked hag 
 sat chanting a guttural charm, and before I re- 
 gained clearer sight his voice rang out in tones of 
 evident relief, ' By the powers ! 'tis only a black 
 albino.' 
 
 The bull was perfect, seeing that it conveyed 
 succinctly a very accurate description. The Ihut- 
 baby was a black, a very black albino, for the ab- 
 normal colouring was confined to its hair, which 
 was unusually well devoloped, and grew in tight 
 clustering curls over its head like a coachman's 
 wig. The faint eyebrows and eyelashes were also 
 white, and the result, if not devilish, was extremely 
 startling. For the rest, it was as fine a man-child 
 as ever came to gladden a mother's heart. I
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 125 
 
 deemed it asleep till I saw the doctor bend closer, 
 and then raise the eyelid in keen professional 
 scrutiny. 
 
 ' Where's the mother ? ' he cried, turning like 
 lightning on the nearest male relative, and seizing 
 him by the scruff of the neck in order to emphasise 
 his words. ' Bring her at once, or I'll go inside and 
 fetch her myself. The child has been left to 
 starve,' he added rapidly in English, ' and it's nigh 
 dead of neglect. You're a magistrate ! Make 
 them bring the devil of a mother here at once, or 
 it will die.' 
 
 But they met my commands and remonstrances 
 with frightened obstinacy, asserting after some 
 hesitation that the mother was dead, had died 
 virtuously of shame at bringing such disgrace to 
 her people. I had every reason to believe this 
 statement was a lie, but no means of proving it to 
 be one, for of course the whole village favoured it. 
 
 Then there came to Terence O'Eeilly's face a 
 look that was good to see, but not to endure. 
 * And if the poor little creature has lost its own
 
 126 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 mother,' he cried in that strong, round voice of 
 his, ' are there no other women among you all with 
 the milk of kindness in their breasts that will give 
 it a drink for the sake of the time when they took 
 suck themselves ? Look at it ! What are you all 
 frightened of? 'Tis as fine a babe as a woman 
 could bear. Only the white hair of it, and God 
 knows we shall all come to that if we are spared. 
 Look at it, I say ! Handle it, and see for your- 
 selves ! ' 
 
 Suiting the action to the word, he lifted the 
 infant in his arms and carried it out to the linger- 
 ing light of day, amt)ng the crowd which fell back 
 in alarm from him and his burden. He did, 
 indeed, look somewhat of an avenging angel with 
 his face ablaze with indignant appeal. There was 
 a scutthng from behind as some of the head-men 
 tried to force a sweeper -woman to the front, but 
 ere they succeeded she had promptly gone into 
 hysterics, and so roused a murmur of disappro- 
 bation and dismay among the rest. Her shrieks 
 brought Terence back to earth, and ceasing to
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 127 
 
 hold the child at arm's length, as if offering it for 
 acceptance, he turned to me once more. ' xA.t 
 least your magistracy can make them bring me 
 milk. If ye can't even do that, then God help 
 the British rule ! ' 
 
 Stung by the sarcasm, I exerted myself to such 
 an extent, that three separate head-men arrived 
 breatliless at the same moment with large lotahs 
 full of nourishment for the devil, or any one else 
 on whom the Presence was foolish enough to bestow 
 it. So much lay within their conceptions of duty. 
 
 The scene which followed will linger in my 
 memory until memory itself ceases to be. Ter- 
 ence in polo-costume seated on a string bed under 
 the darkening skies with the devil on his lap, 
 feeding it methodically with the corner of his 
 pocket-handkerchief moistened in the milk held 
 by three trembling lamhadars. Beside him the 
 Presence, with, thank God, sufficient ^dtality left 
 for admiration. And round about a cloud of awe- 
 struck witnesses, wondering at his audacity, 
 doubtful of its effect on the future.
 
 128 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 * Sure 'tis the firrst toime I ever did dhry- 
 nurse/ he remarked after a long silence, during 
 which I became absorbingly interested in the 
 little imp's growing desire for life. ' Hark to 
 that, now ! The ungrateful divvle's wanting to 
 cry just because it's got something to digest, as if 
 that wasn't the firrst duty of a human stomach. 
 Great Moses ! don't ye think it's time you stepped 
 in as ripresentative of the Kaiser-i-Hind, and took 
 things in hand a bit ? Ah, it's after having dill- 
 water ye are now, is it ? Whist, whist, whist 
 now!' 
 
 He walked up and down, the crowd swaying 
 from him, as he dandled the infant with what 
 seemed to me marvellous skill, while I did my 
 best to argue sense into the dull brains of the 
 villagers. I was quite unsuccessful, of course, 
 and after many words found myself, as before, 
 with two courses open to me ; either to leave the 
 hhut-hdihy where it was, or give it in charge of the 
 head-men, — the one a swift, the other a more 
 tardy certainty of death from that mysterious
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 129 
 
 disease called ' by the cause of not drinking milk 
 properly/ which figures so largely in the records 
 of infant mortality in India ; the former for choice, 
 since, as Terence remarked, ' It would save trouble 
 to kill it at the beginning instead of the end of its 
 life.' 
 
 ' So the magistracy can do nothing,' he said at 
 last ; ' thin I will. Chowkidxtr I take this baby to 
 the headquarters hospital. I'm master there, 
 annyhow, and I'll make it anny case I please, 
 and dye its hair, an' no man shall say me nay ! ' 
 
 So the clioickidar was ordered to carry the 
 devil to hospital to be cured of its devilry, and we 
 rode home in frantic haste, because Terence was 
 engaged to sing 'Killaloe ' that evening in barracks. 
 Some of the relations ran about a mile after us 
 yelling out blessings for having removed the 
 curse from them. 
 
 Six weeks after I saw an atrocious hag nursing 
 a white-haired infant in the doctor's own com- 
 pound, and questioned him on the subject. ' The 
 fact is,' he said ruefully, 'it gave fits to the 
 
 VOL. I K
 
 130 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 patients. I tried shaving its head, but it grew so 
 fast and the white eyelashes of it betrayed the 
 cloven hoof. And dye wouldn't stick on ; so I've 
 hired a harridan on two rupees a month to look 
 after it under my own eye.' 
 
 There was, no doubt, something of com- 
 bativeness in this particular instance of Terence 
 O'Keilly's charity; but the hhut-hsibj was by no 
 means the only pensioner on his bounty. The 
 row of mud houses beyond the cook-room was 
 filled with the halt, the maimed, and the blind — 
 especially the latter, for the fame of his infinite 
 skill and patience as an eye -doctor was spreadmg 
 far and wide. Besides, he had the secret, pos- 
 sessed by some Englishmen unconsciously, of 
 inspiring the natives with absolutely unbounded 
 devotion, and many of his patients would literally 
 have laid down their lives for him ; among others 
 his bearer, a high-caste Brahman. The man, who 
 had originally come to him for blindness of long 
 standing, had, on recovery, made his way straight 
 from hospital to the doctor's house, and announced
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 131 
 
 his intention of serving him till death. 'What 
 are hands, and feet, or brain,' he answered calmly 
 to all objections, ' if they have not eyes to guide 
 them ? Therefore are they all predestined since 
 all time to be servants to my Lord the Light- 
 bringer for ever and ever.' 
 
 Treated at first as a joke, Shivdeo's determina- 
 tion had outlived opposition, and at the time of 
 the &Ai6^baby's advent he had achieved his inten- 
 tion of becoming trusted personal attendant to the 
 'Light of the AVorld,' for without some such 
 allusion to the benefit he had received at his 
 hands he never spoke of his master. The intro- 
 duction of a baby, pariah to begin with and 
 devil to follow, brought about a temporary 
 disturbance of his office ; for he was haughty, with 
 all the pride of his race, and superstitious beyond 
 belief. But after a week of dismissal consequent 
 on failing to provide the harridan with proper 
 milk for the bottle, Shivdeo, almost blind again 
 with fruitless tears, crept back to the Light- 
 giver's feet and swore a big oath to feed the low-
 
 132 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 caste demon himself if thereby he might return to 
 the only life he could live. He kept his promise 
 of strict neutrality to the letter, never by word or 
 deed showing his aversion to the child ; affecting 
 indeed not to see it with those mild, short-sighted 
 eyes of his. Yet, as it grew older, he must often 
 have been brought into contact with the child, 
 for it would crawl after the doctor like a dog. 
 Despite the peculiarity of its silvery curls and 
 pale blue eyes, it was really pretty, and by the 
 time it was two years old had picked up such a 
 variety of comical tricks and odd ways, that 
 Boots, as we called it, became quite an institu- 
 tion with the doctor's friends. We used to send 
 for it to the verandah and laugh at the silent 
 agility with which it tumbled for sweetmeats, and 
 the equally silent quickness of its mimicry ; for to 
 all intents and purposes the child was dumb. 
 Beyond a very rare repetition of the feeble wail I 
 had first heard from it in the doctor's arms at 
 Hairan-wallah, it made no articulate sound what- 
 ever ; but once or twice when we tired of it and
 
 THE B HUT-BABY 133 
 
 forgot its presence, I have heard a purring noise 
 hke a cat, and looking down, found that the Httle 
 creature was curled up with its silver curls rest- 
 ing on the doctor's foot in perfect content. He 
 spent many hours in demonstrating its full 
 possession of all five senses, and always declared 
 it would speak in time ; certainly if speech went 
 by intelKgence it would have been the most elo- 
 quent of babies. As it was, its unusual silence 
 undoubtedly added to its uncanny appearance, and 
 helped to strengthen the still lingering belief in 
 its devilish origin. As long, however, as Terence 
 O'Eeilly's voice gave the orders for its well-being, 
 not a soul in his compound or elsewhere would 
 have dreamt of disobedience. Indeed, it often 
 struck me that poor little Boots lived by vii^tue 
 of his exuberant vitahty, and by nothing else. 
 
 I remember one evening we had been screanmig 
 with laughter over the comical little creature's 
 mimicry of Shivdeo's stately, short-sighted way of 
 bringing in whisky and soda-water. The applause 
 seemed to get into the baby's brain, and it took
 
 134 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 US off one after the other with such deadly truth 
 that we nearly rolled off our chairs. Then some 
 one suggested that we should ask it to imitate 
 Terence, who happened to be absent ; and when it 
 failed to respond, a young subaltern, thinking it 
 had not understood, came out with a fair copy of 
 the doctor's round, rich brogue. We were all 
 startled at the result; the child made for the 
 speaker like a wild beast, stopped suddenly, then 
 crept away with silent tears brimming up into its 
 eyes. I think we all felt a bit ashamed, especially 
 when Terence, coming in from a patient, found 
 Boots curled up asleep in a damp corner by the 
 tattie, and, with a mild rebuke that, ' 'Twas enough 
 to give the poor little crayture fayver an' ague,' 
 lifted the child in his arms, and proceeded to 
 carry it across the garden to its harridan. But 
 he had hardly raised it before Shivdeo, gliding in 
 like a ghost from heaven knows where, came 
 forward and took the child from him with a rapid 
 insistence that left me wondering. So, when the 
 man brought me my parting cheroot, I questioned
 
 THE B HUT-BABY 135 
 
 him on liis interference. He looked startled for 
 a moment; then replied gravely that it was not 
 meet for the Light of the Universe to bear a 
 sweeper's child in his bosom. ' Xor is it meet for 
 a Brahman either/ I returned, feeling sure he had 
 some other reason. The man's eyes flashed before 
 they dropped submissively : ' Nor is it meet for a 
 Brahman to serve ; but the Presence knows that 
 this slave cares not if he wakes as a dog so that the 
 Lord of Light remains to give sight to the blind.' 
 
 Shortly after this Boots sickened for some 
 childish complaint, in the course of which pneu- 
 monia developed, making it hover for a day or 
 two between this world and the next. Once 
 more Terence stood between the hhut-hahj and 
 the shadow of death, and had it been the heir of 
 princes, the resources of modern science could 
 not have been more diligently ransacked for its 
 benefit. Indeed the doctor looked quite worn 
 out when I met him one morning, going, as he 
 said, to give himself a freshener by taking the 
 Lily round the steeple-chase course.
 
 136 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 'You're over-working, Terence/ said I, noting 
 his fine-drawn clearness of feature ; ' up all night 
 after Boots (I'm glad to hear the little fellow's 
 better by the way), and Blue Pill waiting for you 
 day after day till after dark at the hospital gates, 
 to say nothing of gymkhanas. It won't do for 
 long ; I'm serious about it, old chap.' 
 
 ' Are you ? Well, it's kind of you to be that, 
 he laughed ; ' though mayhap 'twould be more of 
 a change for your friends if you were the t'other 
 thing. Don't fret yourself about me, annyhow ; 
 I'm well enough. Maybe 'tis having done dhry- 
 nurse to him at first that makes me feel Boots on 
 me mind; but I think he's well through. And 
 d'ye know ! the little beggar wouldn't touch a 
 thing unless I gave it him. 'Tis a queer place 
 this worrld, annyhow.' 
 
 His voice had a suspicion of a break in it, and 
 his eyes were brighter than ever ; whence I aug- 
 ured that he felt worse than he cared to confess. 
 Next day he sent a note asking me to inspect the 
 jail for him, as he was going to try conclusions
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 137 
 
 with his liver ; the day after I found him in bed, 
 but lively. Then the deadly fever which kills so 
 many fine young fellows in India laid fast hold 
 on him, and for three long weeks we, w^ho loved 
 him, watched the struggle for life, helpless to do 
 aught save keep up his strength as best we might 
 against the coming crisis. It was as if a calamity 
 had befaUen the whole Station. Men when they 
 met each other asked first of all how he was ; and 
 women sent jeUies and soups enough for a regi- 
 ment to the bungalow where the young doctor, 
 who had soothed so many of their troubles, lay 
 bravely fighting out his own. Quite a crowd of 
 natives gathered round the gate by early dawn, 
 waiting for new^s of the past night ; and, so far as 
 I knew, Shivdeo never left the verandah during 
 all those weary days. I could see him from my 
 post by the bed, sitting like a bronze statue 
 against a pillar, whence my slightest sign would 
 rouse him. For I assumed the ofiice of head-nurse 
 after Terence, fuU of gratitude for the kindly offers 
 of help showered upon him, had said with a wist-
 
 138 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 ful gleam of the old mischief, ' But I loike your 
 sober face best, old man ; it makes me feel so 
 pious.' I sent in for leave that morning and 
 never left him again. 
 
 It was the twenty-sixth day, about ten o'clock 
 in the evening, that the doctor in charge shook 
 his head over my patient sorrowfully. 'He is 
 terribly weak, but while there's life — We shall 
 know by dawn.' 
 
 The old formula fell on my ears — though I had 
 been waiting for it — with a sense of sickening 
 failure, and unable to reply, I turned away from 
 the figure which lay so still and lifeless despite 
 all my care. As I did so I noticed Shivdeo listen- 
 ing with eyes and ears at the door. For the last 
 three days the man had been strangely restless, 
 and more than once I had discovered odd things 
 disposed about the room, and even on poor 
 Terence's pillow, — things used as talismans to 
 keep away the evil eye, such as I had seen in 
 Hairan- wallah when the hhiU-haby was born ; 
 and I had smiled, — good heavens, how ignorant
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 139 
 
 we are in India ! — smiled at the silly superstition 
 which evidently lingered in Shivdeo's mind. He 
 came to me when the doctor left to ask if he had 
 understood rightly that the great hour of hope or 
 dread drew nigh. I told him we should know by 
 dawn, and that till then all must be quiet as the 
 grave. His face startled me by its intensity, as 
 standing at the foot of the bed he fixed his eyes 
 on the unconscious face of his master and salaamed 
 to it with all the reverence he would have given 
 to a god. But he spoke calmly to me, saying 
 that as I would doubtless be loth to leave the 
 room he would order the servants to brino- me 
 something to eat there. He presently appeared, 
 bearing the tray himself, giving as a reason for 
 tliis unusual service his desire to avoid any dis- 
 turbance. It was just upon twelve o'clock when, 
 with Shivdeo's help, I gave Terence, who was 
 quite unconscious, a few drops of stimulant 
 before sitting down with a sinking heart to my 
 anxious watch. It was early April, and the doors, 
 set wide open to let in the cool air, showed a
 
 140 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 stretch of moonlit grass where shadows from the 
 unseen trees above quivered and shifted as the 
 night- wind stirred the leaves. In the breathless 
 silence I could hear even the faint respiration of 
 the sick man, and found myself counting its rise 
 and fall, until the last thing I remembered was 
 Shivdeo's immovable figure with the moonlight 
 streaming full in his face. 
 
 When I awoke the rapid Eastern dawn had 
 come. The sparrows were twittering in the 
 verandah, and Shivdeo stood by his master's bed 
 holding his finger to his lips. ' Hush ! ' he whis- 
 pered, as my eyes met his ; ' the light has brought 
 life to the Giver of Lig^ht.' 
 
 It must have been the sound of wheels which 
 woke me, for ere I had time to reply the doctor 
 entered the room, and after a glance at his patient 
 shook me silently by the hand. ' I believe he's 
 through,' he said, when he had cautiously exam- 
 ined the sleeping man; ' fever gone, pulse stronger. 
 I scarcely dared to hope for it even with his 
 splendid constitution. Hullo ! what's that ?' It
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 141 
 
 was only a tiny spot of blood on the forehead just 
 where the trident of Shiva is painted by his 
 worshippers, but it showed \dvidly against the 
 pallor of the skin. 
 
 ' There is a Httle spot by the Light-giver's feet 
 also/ remarked Shivdeo quietly. ' I noticed it 
 yesterday just after the Presence cut his hand 
 with the soda-water bottle.' And sure enough 
 there was one. 
 
 ' I can't think how I came to fall asleep,' I said 
 to him after the doctor had gone; 'just at the 
 critical time, too, when I was most wanted.' 
 
 The man smiled. 'We do not always guess 
 aright when we are wanted, Huzoor. You slept 
 and the Light-giver got better. It is God's way ; 
 He has refreshed you both.' 
 
 ' Eefreshed 1 ' I retorted crossly. ' I feel as if 
 I had been pounded in a mortar. I had the most 
 frightful dreams, but I can't recall what they 
 were.' 
 
 'It is not well to try,' replied Shivdeo, with 
 rather an odd look. 'If I were the Presence I
 
 142 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 would forget them. There is enough evil to come 
 without recalling what is past and over for ever.' 
 
 Perhaps involuntarily I followed his suggestion, 
 for, though I chased the fleeting memory more 
 than once through my brain, I never overtook it. 
 
 Terence O'Eeilly made a quick recovery ; 
 but in view of the fast-approaching hot weather, 
 the doctors put him on board ship as soon as it 
 could be done with safety. Hurry was the order 
 of the day, so it was not until my return from 
 seeing him to Bombay that I found time for out- 
 side affairs. Then it was that Shivdeo informed 
 me of poor little Boots' death in the interval. As 
 the Presence was aware, he said, it had been 
 thought advisable when perfect quiet was neces- 
 sary to the Light-bringer to send the child away 
 from the compound, because of the difficulty ex- 
 perienced in keeping it out of the house. So it 
 had gone with its nurse to the cantonment- 
 sweeper's hut, where it had caught fresh cold and 
 died. By the advice of the native doctor who had 
 seen it, he had kept the death secret at first, from
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 143 
 
 fear of the news delaying his master's recovery. 
 I made every inquiry, but found nothing of any 
 kind to give rise to suspicion of foul play. The 
 native doctor had sent medicine three days run- 
 ning as for bronchitis, and on the fourth he had 
 seen the child's dead body. It had died, he 
 thought, of croup. 
 
 ' You will write and tell the Light-bringer ? ' 
 asked Shivdeo when the inquiry was over. ' And 
 you will say that I did my best, my very best, for 
 my lord's interest ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly,' I replied ; ' but he will be sorry, 
 the child was so fond of him.' 
 
 * When people are beautifid as Krishna like 
 the Lord of Light it is easy to be fond of them.' 
 
 I did not see Shivdeo again for over three 
 months, and the bungalow in the Civil Lines, 
 which he kept swept and garnished against his 
 master's return, gradually assumed the soulless, 
 empty appearance peculiar to the dwelUng-places 
 of those who make holiday at the other side of 
 the world. Then a message came to say that he
 
 144 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 was ill, and wished to see me on business. I 
 found him, a mere wreck and shadow of his 
 former self, propped up against his old pillar in 
 the verandah. He shook his head over my sug- 
 gestions of remedies. ' I have taken many,' he 
 replied quietly, ' for the native doctor is my caste- 
 brother. The hand of Shiva is not to be turned 
 aside, and am I not his sworn servant ? What 
 ails me ? Nay, who can say what ails the heart 
 when it ceases to beat ? Men cannot live with- 
 out the light, and it is night for me now. Per- 
 haps that is it, who knows ? Yonder old man is my 
 father come to see me die ; yet ere the last " Eam- 
 Eam" sounds in mine ears I want the Presence 
 to understand something, else would I not have 
 vexed his quiet. It will be hard for the Hiizoor 
 to understand, because he is not of our race.' 
 
 He paused so long that I asked what he 
 wished me to understand, thinking that in his 
 weakness he had drifted away from his desire. 
 ' Something new and strange,' he answered, ' yet 
 old and true. See ! I sit here in the old place,
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 145 
 
 and the Presence shall sit there as he used to do, 
 because old memories return in the old places, 
 making us see and remember things that are past 
 or forgotten. Is it not so ? ' 
 
 Truly enough, as I humoured him by occupy- 
 ing the familiar chair, ready placed half-way be- 
 tween the bed and the window, it seemed to me 
 as if I were once more watching Terence pass 
 through the valley of the shadow. 
 
 'The Presence once slept in that chair,' con- 
 tinued the weak voice, ' and he dreamed a dream. 
 Let him recall it now, if he can.' 
 
 How or wherefore I know not, but as he spoke 
 a sudden certainty as to what he wished me to 
 know rushed in on me. 'Great God,' T cried, 
 starting up and seizing him roughly by the 
 shoulder, ' you killed poor little Boots 1 You 
 brought the child here ! You killed it before his 
 very eyes and mine ! I know it ! I think, — I 
 think I saw it done ! ' 
 
 He set my hand aside with unexpected force 
 
 and a strange dignity. ' I am the prisoner of 
 VOL. I L
 
 146 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 Death, Hiizoor I There is no need to hold me ; 
 I cannot escape him. For the rest, if I killed the 
 child, what then ? The Lord of Light lives and 
 that is enough for me. What is a Sudra or two 
 more or less to the Brahman ? But what if it 
 was a devil sucking his heart's blood because of 
 his beauty ? Shall I not have honour for saving 
 him ? Thus both ways I am absolved ; but not 
 from my oath, the false oath which I swore to my 
 lord for my own sake. When I wander through 
 the shades waiting for Vishnu's decree, it will 
 lead my blind steps to the body of a foul thing. 
 So I speak that the Presence may judge and say 
 if I were not justified, and confess that we people 
 of the old knowledge are not always wrong. 
 Huzoor ! you have seen its eyes glisten, as its 
 body clung to his beauty ; you know he sickened 
 after it had lain night and day in his arms ; you 
 know how it crept and crawled to get at him 
 while he lay helpless. Now listen ! One day he 
 was better, brighter in all things, and bid you re- 
 fresh yourself in the air. I sat here, and like you
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 147 
 
 I fell asleep ; and when I woke the thing was at 
 him, close to his heart, its arms round his neck, 
 its devilish lips at his throat, crooning away like 
 an accursed cat ! And he was in the death-sleep 
 that lasted till the dawn came that you and I re- 
 member so well. Then I knew it must be, and 
 that my oath was as a reed in the flood. Yet 
 would I not be hasty. I took counsel with holy 
 men, men of mighty wisdom, men with such 
 tenderness for life that they bid God speed to the 
 flea which keeps them wakeful ; but they all said, 
 " Yea ! one of the two must die." Did I stop to 
 ask which ? Xot I. So I fasted, and prayed, and 
 made clean my heart, and waited patiently for the 
 moment of fate ; for so they bid me. Even then, 
 Huzoor, the holy men would do naught by chance 
 or without proof It was a bright moonlight 
 night, and the Presence slept by reason of our 
 arts and drugs ; and so we put the accursed 
 creature we had brought from the sweeper's hut 
 down at the gate, yonder by the flowering 
 oleanders, and hiding ourselves among them,
 
 148 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 watched it. Straight, straight as a hawk or a 
 bustard, until we found it there in the old place ! 
 Devil of Hell ! we made it vomit back the blood, 
 we — ' 
 
 My hand was on his mouth, my one thought to 
 stop the horrible words that somehow conjured 
 up the still more horrible sight before my eyes. 
 ' I know, — there is no need for more, — I cannot 
 bear it.' 
 
 And indeed, the vision of poor dumb little 
 Boots in their relentless hold froze my blood. 
 As my hands fell away from him in sudden, 
 shrinking horror, he looked at me compassion- 
 ately. ' The Presence does not understand aright. 
 Let him remember the strange doctor's face when 
 he came in the dawn, thinking to find hope had 
 fled. One of the two had to die. If the Presence 
 had thought as I did, as I hneic, what would he 
 have done ? ' 
 
 I was silent. 
 
 His face, which had remained calm enough so 
 far, assumed a look of agonized entreaty, as with
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 149 
 
 an effort painful to see he dragged himself to my feet 
 and clung to them. ' What would you have done, 
 Huzoor, in my place ? WTiat would you have 
 done ? ' 
 
 Then a fearful fit of coughing seized him, and 
 his lips were tinged wdth blood. Water lay close 
 at hand, yet I knew that this murderer would 
 sooner have died than accept it from my defiling 
 hand ; so I called the old man who all this time 
 had sat like a carven image in the next archway. 
 He came, and wiped the dews of death from his 
 son's face without a word; and as he did so, 
 Shivdeo, looking at the faint stains on the cloth, 
 smiled an unearthly smile, and whispered, ' I did 
 not suck my lord's blood, for all that. It comes 
 from my own heart.' 
 
 I am not ashamed to say that my brain was in 
 such a whirl that I turned to escape from a situa- 
 tion where I felt utterly lost. As I did so, I heard 
 Shivdeo's voice for the last time. The old man 
 was holding a little brass cup of water to the 
 parched lips ; but it was arrested by the dying
 
 150 THE BHUT-BABY 
 
 hand, and the dying eyes looked wistfully up into 
 his father's. 
 
 ' Did I do well, my father ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' You did well, my son ; drink in peace.' 
 
 When I reached home, the English mail was 
 in. It brought a letter from Terence. He was 
 in Dublin and engaged to be married ; considering 
 that he was an Irishman, no more need be said. 
 He wrote the kindest letter, saying that the great 
 happiness which had come into his life made him 
 all the more grateful to me, seeing that but 
 for my care he would have gone down to the 
 grave without knowing how the love of a 
 good woman can make existence seem a sacred 
 trust. He ended by these w^ords, ' And sure, 
 old man, if it be true that all happiness is 
 bought, some one must have paid dear for 
 mine ! ' 
 
 I could not sleep that night — the war of con- 
 flicting thoughts waged too fiercely; but it was 
 nearly dawn before I found it impossible to with- 
 stand the memory of Shivdeo's cry : ' If the Pre-
 
 THE BHUT-BABY 151 
 
 sence had tliouglit as I did, what would he have 
 done ? ' 
 
 He was dead before I reached the house, but 
 surely if he knows anything, he must know that 
 I, for one, cast no stone.
 
 KAMCHUNDEEJI 
 
 ' But the tenth avatar of the Lord Yishnii is yet 
 to come.' 
 
 ' Exactly so, pundit-y-i/ I replied, looking at my 
 watch. ' It is yet to come, seeing that time's up. 
 Half-past eight ; so not another stroke of work to- 
 day. No, not for twice a thousand rupees ! ' 
 
 A thousand rupees being the sum with which 
 the Government of India rewards what they are 
 pleased to call ' high proficiency ' in languages, I, 
 having^ regard to its literature, had chosen Sanskrit 
 as a means of paying certain just debts. To which 
 end the head-master of the district school came to 
 me for two hours every morning, and prosed away 
 over the doings of the Hindoo pantheon until I 
 came to the conclusion that my Lord Vishnu
 
 RAMCHUNDER JI 153 
 
 had been rather extravagant in the matter of 
 incarnations. 
 
 The pundit, however, to whom would be due a 
 hundred rupees of the thousand if I succeeded, 
 smiled blandly. ' The tenth avatar will doubtless 
 await his Honour's leisure ; the tenth, and last.' 
 
 ' Last ! ' I echoed with scorn. ' How do you 
 know ? Some authorities hold there are twenty- 
 four, and upon my soul I don't see why there 
 should not be twenty-four thousand. 'Tis the 
 same old story all through : devils and demigods, 
 rakshas and rishies, Noah's ark and Excalibur. 
 That sort of tiling might go on for ever.' 
 
 Now, pundit Xarayan Das was a very learned 
 man. He had taken a Calcutta degree, and was 
 accustomed to educate the rising generation on a 
 mixture of the Big Veda and The Sijectator. So he 
 smiled again, saying in English, 'History repeats 
 itself.' 
 
 Thereupon he left me, and I, going into the 
 verandah with my cigar, came straight upon Eam- 
 chunderji and his wife Seeta. At least I think so.
 
 154 RAMCHUNDERJI 
 
 They were the oddest httle couple. He, at a 
 stretch, might have touched a decade of life, she, 
 something more than half such distance of time. 
 That is, taking them by size : in mind and manners, 
 and in their grave, careworn faces, they were cen- 
 turies old. His sole garment consisted of a large 
 yellow turban twined high into a sort of mitre, 
 with just a tip of burnished silver fringe sprouting 
 from the top ; and, as he sat cross-legged against 
 the verandah pillar, a hand resting on each knee, his 
 figure awoke a fleeting memory which, at the time, I 
 failed to catch. Afterwards I remembered the effi- 
 gies in Indra's celestial court as represented by some 
 Parsee actors I had once seen. Seeta was simply a 
 bundle, owing to her being huddled and cuddled 
 up in a veil ample enough for an ample woman. 
 
 ' I am Eamchunderji, and this is my wife Seeta,' 
 said the boy gravely. ' If the Presence pleases, I 
 will beguile time by singing.' 
 
 'What will you sing?' I asked, preparing to 
 idle away ten minutes comfortably in a lounge - 
 chair which lay convenient.
 
 RAMCHUNDEEJI 155 
 
 ' I sing what I sing. Give me the vina, woman.' 
 
 The veil gave up such a very large instrument 
 that the smallness of the remaining wife became 
 oppressive. So large indeed was it, that one gourd 
 over-filled the boy's lap, while the other acted as 
 a prop to the high twined turban. Even the con- 
 necting bamboo, slender though it was, seemed all 
 too wide for those small fingers on the frets. 
 
 ' Is the permission of the Presence bestowed ? ' 
 suggested Eamchunderji, with the utmost solem- 
 nity. 
 
 Twano;, twang, twangle ! Heavens, what a mna 
 and what a voice ! I nearly stopped both at the 
 first bar ; then, patience prevailing, I lay back and 
 closed my eyes. Twang, twangle ! A sudden 
 difference in the tone made me open them again, 
 only to find the same little bronze image busy in 
 making a perfectly purgatorial noise ; so I resigned 
 myself once more. Palm-trees waving, odorous 
 thickets starred with jasmine, forms, half-mortal 
 half-divine, steahng through the shadows, the 
 flash of shining swords, the twang of golden bows
 
 156 RAMCHUNDERJI 
 
 bent on ten-heacled many-handed monsters. Bah ! 
 Pundit Narayan Das, prosing over those epic poems 
 of his, had made me drowsy. 'What have you 
 been singing ? ' I asked, rousing myself. 
 
 Eamchunderji spread his hands thumbs out- 
 wards, and the three wrinkles on his high forehead 
 deepened : ' God knows ! It is what they sang 
 before the great flood came. The vina was theirs, 
 and my turban, and my wife's veil ; the rest was 
 too big altogether, so I gave it away for some 
 bread. When the belly is full of greed the heart 
 hath none left, and the miie-laMi necklace is worth 
 no more than a mouthful. If the Presence could 
 see into my heart now, he would find no greed 
 there.' 
 
 This delicate allusion to an inw^ard craving pro- 
 duced a four-anna bit from my pocket, and sent 
 Eamchunderji away to the sweetmeat sellers in 
 order to appease his hunger; for sweet-stuff is 
 cheap in the East, especially when it is stale. 
 Seeta and the vina, mysteriously intertwined be- 
 neath the veil, followed duteously behind.
 
 RAMCHUNDERJI 157 
 
 The next clay they were back again, and the 
 twang of that infernal instrument broke in on the 
 pundit's impassioned regrets over the heroic days 
 of his favourite poems. ' By-the-bye/ I interrupted, 
 ' can you tell me what that boy is singing ? I 
 can't make out a word, and yet — ' But it was 
 no use bringing fancy to bear on Xarayan Das, so 
 we went out to listen. They were sitting under a 
 trellised arch covered with jasmine and roses, and 
 a great Gloire de Dijon had sent a shower of blown 
 petals over Seeta's veil. 
 
 'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,' 
 quoted Narayan Das sententiously, after listen- 
 ing a while. ' It is Eamayana, the immortal poem 
 your honour reads even now ; but debase, illiterate. 
 You say wrong, boy ! it is thus.' 
 
 Kamchunderji waited till the pompous periods 
 ceased ; then he shook his head gravely. ' We 
 did not sing it so in the days before the great 
 flood came.' 
 
 His words gave me a curious thrill ; but there 
 is no more matter-of-fact being in the world than
 
 158 KAMCHUNDERJI 
 
 a Calcutta Bachelor of Arts; so the pundit at 
 once began a cross-exammation that would have 
 done credit to a Queen's Counsel, ' What flood ? 
 who were " we " ? ' These and many other ques- 
 tions put with brutal bluntness met with a patient 
 reply. 
 
 It had been a very big flood, somewhere, God 
 knows how far, in the south country. One, two, 
 three years ago ? Oh, more than that ! but he 
 could not say how much more. The bard who 
 sang and the woman who carried the vina had 
 disappeared, been swept away perhaps. Since then 
 he, Eamchunderji, had wandered over the world 
 filling his stomach and that of his wife Seeta with 
 songs. Their stomachs were not always full ; oh 
 no ! Of late (perhaps because the vina was so old) 
 people had not cared to listen, and since the great 
 flood nothing could be got without money. Seeta? 
 Oh yes ! she was his wife. They had been married 
 ever so long; he could not remember the time 
 when they had not been married. 
 
 It was Narayan Das's opportunity for shaking
 
 KAMCHUNDERJI 159 
 
 his head. These infant marriages were subversive 
 of due education. Here was a boy, who should be 
 in Standard II. doing the compound rules, idling 
 about in ignorance. It struck me, however, that 
 Eamchunderji must be pretty well on to vulgar 
 fractions and rule of three, with himself, Seeta, 
 and the world as the denominators, so I asked him 
 if his heart were still so devoid of greed that 
 another four -anna bit would be welcome. His 
 face showed a pained surprise. The Presence, he 
 said, must be aware that four annas would fill their 
 stomachs (which were not big) for many days. 
 They had not come for alms, only to make music 
 for the Presence out of gratitude. Thinking that 
 music out of an ill-tuned vina was hardly the same 
 thing I forced another four-anna bit on the boy 
 and sent him away. 
 
 Nearly a month passed ere I saw him again, 
 though Narayan Das and I used, as the days grew 
 warmer, to sit out in the trellised arch, within 
 sight of the road. My knowledge of Sanskrit 
 increased as I read of Piamchunderji's long exile,
 
 160 RAMCHUNDERJI 
 
 shared by Seeta, his wife; of how he killed the 
 beasts in the enchanted forest ; how she was reft 
 from him by Eavana the hydra -headed many- 
 handed monster ; and of how finally she was re- 
 stored to his arms by the help of Hanuman, the 
 man-monkey, the child of the wild winds. But 
 though the pundit used to waste many words in 
 pointing out the beauties of a poem which held 
 such hold on the minds of the people that their 
 commonest names were derived from it, I never 
 seemed to get into the spirit of the time as I had 
 done when I listened with closed eyes to the boy's 
 debased, illiterate rendering of the slokas. 
 
 It was after the school vacation had sent 
 Narayan Das to see his relatives at Benares that 
 the odd little couple turned up again. Eamchun- 
 derji's face looked more pinched and careworn 
 than ever, and as he held the vina across his knees, 
 Seeta, losing its contours, seemed more than ever 
 inadequate to her veil. 
 
 ' Perhaps one of the many devils which beset 
 the virtuous has entered into the instrument,' he
 
 RAMCHUNDER JI 161 
 
 said, despondently ; ' but when I play, folk listen 
 not at all. So greed remaineth in the stomach, 
 and the heart is empty.' 
 
 I ofiered him another foiir-anna bit, and when 
 he demurred at taking it before beguiling the 
 tinie with music, I laid it on the flat skin 
 top of one of the gourds, hoping thus to ensure 
 silence. 
 
 The wrinkles on his forehead seemed to go 
 right up into his turban, and his voice took a per- 
 plexed tone. ' It used not to be so. Before the 
 flood Seeta and I had no thought of money; but 
 now — ' He began fingering the strings softly, 
 and as they thrilled, the four- anna bit vibrated 
 and jigged in a murmur of money that fitted 
 strangely to the sort of rude chant in which he 
 went on. 
 
 ' Money is in tlie hands, the head, the heart ; 
 
 Give ! give, give, before we give again ; 
 Money hath ten heads to think out evil-doing ; 
 
 Money hath twenty hands to mete out pain. 
 Money ! money ! money ! money ! 
 
 Money steals the heart's love from our life. 
 Money I have not — say ! art thou hungry, wife ? ' 
 VOL. I M
 
 162 KAMCHUNDERJI 
 
 If anything was possessed of a devil it was that 
 four-anna bit. It buzzed, and hummed, and jigged 
 infernally, as the boy's finger on the strings struck 
 more firmly. 
 
 ' I'll tell you what it is, Eamchunderji,' said I, 
 uneasily, 'that vina is enough to ruin Orpheus. 
 As you don't care for my money, I'll give you 
 another instrument instead. I have one inside 
 which is easier to play, and more your style in 
 every way.' 
 
 So I brought out a ravandstron, such as pro- 
 fessional beggars use, a thing with two strings and 
 a gourd covered with snake-skin. To my surprise 
 the boy's face lost its impassive melancholy in 
 palpable anger. 
 
 ' The Presence does not understand,' he said, 
 quite hotly. 'We do not beg; Seeta and I fill 
 ourselves with songs. That thing whines for 
 money, money, money, like the devil who made it. 
 Eather would I live by this than by mine enemy.' 
 And as he spoke he struck the snake-skin with 
 his supple fingers till it resounded again. ' Yea !
 
 KAMCHUXDER JI 163 
 
 thus Avill I find bread/ he went on, ' but the vina 
 must find a home first. Therefore I came to the 
 Presence, hearing that he collected such things. 
 Perhaps he will keep it in exchange for one rupee. 
 It is worth one rupee, surely.' 
 
 His wistful look as he handed me the instru- 
 ment made me feel inclined to offer a hundred : 
 but in good sooth the vina was worth five, and I 
 told him so, adding, as I looked at some curious 
 tracery round the gourds, that it appeared to be 
 very old indeed. 
 
 ' The Presence saith truly ; it is very old,' 
 echoed Eamchunderji drearily. ' That is why 
 folk will not listen. It is too old ; too old to be 
 worth money.' 
 
 Xevertheless he cheered up at the sight of his 
 rupee ; for he would not take more, saying he had 
 ever}' intention of returning to claim the vina ere 
 long, and that five rttpees would be beyond his 
 hopes of gain. 
 
 A fortnight after I came home from my early 
 morning ride by the police office, which stood
 
 164 EAMCHUNDERJI 
 
 outside the native town, close to a brick-stepped 
 tank shaded by ^^cejjz^/ trees, my object being to 
 check the tally of poisonous snakes brought in for 
 the reward given by Government for their capture. 
 The first time I saw some six or seven hundred 
 deadly serpents ranged in a row with all their 
 heads one way, and all their unwinking eyes 
 apparently fixed on me, I felt queer, and the fact 
 of their being dead did not somehow enter into 
 the equation. But habit inures one, and I walked 
 along the thin grey fringe of certain death spread 
 out on the first step of the tank with an air of 
 stolid business, only stopping before an unusually 
 large specimen to ask the captor, who sat behind 
 awaiting his pence, where he had come across it. 
 
 ' Six hundred and seventy in all, Huzoor,' 
 remarked the Deputy Inspector of Police, follow- 
 ing me, resplendent in silver trappings and white 
 cotton gloves. ' That is owing to the floods, and 
 the season, since this is the sixth of Bliddron 
 (August) the month of snakes. Yet the outlay is 
 excessive to the Government, and perhaps with
 
 RAMCHUXDEK JI 165 
 
 justice the price of small ones, such as these, 
 might be reduced one-half.' 
 
 I looked up, and behind a fringe of diminutive 
 vipers sat Eamchunderji and the bundle he called 
 Seeta. On his bare right arm he wore a much- 
 betasselled floss silk bracelet bound with tinsel. 
 
 ' I am glad to see the greed is in your heart 
 again,' said I, pointing to the ornament. 
 
 ' The Edm-rucJvi is not bought, but given, as in 
 the days before the flood,' replied the boy. 'Every 
 one wears the Edm-ruchi still, every one ! ' 
 
 The Deputy Inspector pulled down the cuff of 
 his uniform hastily, but against the gleam of his 
 white gloves I caught a glimpse of bright colours. 
 The Bdm-riicid, he explained evasively, was the 
 bracelet of luck given to Efimchunderji in old 
 days before his search for Seeta, and common, ill- 
 educated people still retained the superstitious 
 custom of binding one on the wrist of each male 
 during the month of Bhddron. There was so 
 much deplorable ignorance amongst the unedu- 
 cated classes, and did the Presence look with
 
 166 EAMCHUNDERJI 
 
 favour on the proposal for reducing the rewards ? 
 Perhaps it was Eamchunderji's eager, wistful face 
 hinting at the way promises were kept before the 
 flood, which made me reply that I considered no 
 one but the Viceroy in Council had power to 
 reduce the price of snakes. 
 
 Several times after this I found the odd little 
 couple disposed behind their tally of small vipers ; 
 then the season of serpents ceased, and one by 
 one the habitues of the tank steps dropped off to 
 pursue other professions. The fringe l^roke into 
 isolated tassels, and finally the worn, ruddy steps 
 lay bare of all save the flickering light and shade 
 of the leaves above. 
 
 November had chilled the welcome cool weather 
 to cold, when a report came in the usual course 
 that a boy calling himself Eamchunderji, and a 
 girl said to be his wife, had been found in a 
 jasmine garden outside the city, half dead of 
 exhaustion and without any ostensible means of 
 livelihood. They had been taken up as vagrants 
 and sent to hospital, pending Government orders.
 
 RAMCHUXDERJI 167 
 
 Xow the Jubilee year was coming to a close, leav- 
 ing behind it a legacy of new charities throughout 
 the length and l^readth of India. Of some the 
 foundation stone only had been laid by direct 
 telegi^am to the Queen - Empress ; others had 
 sprung to life in a manner suggestive of workmen's 
 tenements. Among the latter was a Female 
 Boarding School and Orphanage for the children 
 of hic^h-caste Hindus, which had been built and 
 endowed by a number of rich contractors and 
 usurers, not one of whom would have sent their 
 daughters to it for all their hoarded wealth. 
 Persistent pennies had attracted a creditable, if 
 intermittent, supply of day-scholars to its stucco 
 walls : but despite an appropriate inscription in 
 three languages over the gate, the orphanage 
 remained empty. Money can do much, but it 
 cannot produce homeless orphans of good family 
 in a society where the patriarchal system lingers 
 in all its crass disregard of the main chance. So 
 at the first hint of Seeta I was besieged on all 
 sides. A real live, genuine, Hindu female orphan
 
 168 EAMCHUNDEE JI 
 
 going a l3egging ! Preposterous ! Sacrilegious ! 
 The Chairman of the Orphanage Committee 
 almost wept as he pictured the emptiness of those 
 white walls, and actually shed tears over the 
 building estimates which he produced in order 
 to strengthen his claim to poor little Seeta. 
 Was it fair, he asked, that such a total of muni- 
 ficent charity should not have a single orphan 
 k) show the Commissioner-sa/a6 when he came 
 on tour ? His distress touched me. Then 
 winter, hard on the poor even in sunlit India, 
 was on us ; besides, Narayan Das tempted me 
 further, with suggestions of a Jubilee Scholar- 
 ship at the district school for Eamchunderji 
 himself. 
 
 I broke it very gently to the boy as he lay on 
 a mat in the sun, slowly absorbing warmth and 
 nourishment. He was too weak to contest the 
 point, but I felt bad, exceedingly, when I saw 
 him turn face down as if the end of all things 
 was upon him. I knew he must be whispering 
 confidences to Mother Earth respecting that
 
 EAMCHUNDERJI 169 
 
 happy time before the flood, and I shmk away 
 as though I had been whipped. 
 
 Xow, if in telling this veracious history I seem 
 too intermittent, I can but offer as an excuse the 
 fact that an official's work in India is like that of 
 a Jacquard loom. A thread slips forward, shows 
 for a second, and disappears ; a pause, and there 
 it is again. Sometimes not until the pattern is 
 complete is it possible to realise that the series 
 of trivial incidents has combined to weave an 
 indelible record on the warp and woof. So it 
 was early January before the Eamchunderji 
 shuttle stirred again. Xarayan Das came to me 
 with a look on his face suggestive that neither 
 the Rig- Veda nor The SiKctator was entirely satis- 
 factory. The boy, he said, was not a bad boy, 
 though he seemed absolutely unable to learn ; 
 but his influence on Standard I. was strictly non- 
 regulation, nor did any section of the Educational 
 Code apply to the case. If I would come down at 
 recess tune, I could see and judge for myself what 
 ought to be done. When I reached the play-
 
 170 RAMCHUNDERJI 
 
 ground the bigger boys were at kriktdts (cricket) 
 or gymnastics, the medium ones engaged on mar- 
 bles, but in a sunny corner backed by warm brick 
 walls sat Eamchunderji surrounded by a circle of 
 Standard I. Small as he was, he was still so 
 much larger than the average of the class, that, 
 as he leant his high yellow turban against the 
 wall, with half-closed eyes and hands upon his 
 knees, the memory of Indra's Court came back to 
 me once more. He was reciting something in a 
 low voice, and as the children munched popcorn 
 or sucked sweeties their eyes never left his face. 
 
 ' Look ! ' said Narayan Das in a whisper from 
 our spying-ground behind the master's window. 
 The song came to an end, a stir circled through 
 the audience, and one by one the solid children 
 of the fields, and the slender, sharp little imps of 
 the bazaars, rose up and put something into the 
 singer's lap. A few grain's of corn, a scrap of 
 sweet stuff, and as they did so each said in 
 turn, ' Salaam, Eamchunderji ! ' 'No wonder 
 the boy has grown fat,' I whispered, dropping
 
 RAMCHUXDEE JI 1 7 1 
 
 the reed screen round which I had been 
 peeping. 
 
 Narayan Das shook his head. ' If it were only 
 comestibles/ he replied gravely, ' I could arrange ; 
 but when they are devoid of victuals they give 
 their slate-pencils, their ink-pots, even their First- 
 Lesson books. Then, if nobody sees and stops, 
 there is vacancy when such things are applied for. 
 Thus it is subversive of discipline, and parents 
 object to pay. Besides, the in -forma -jxtiqjeris 
 pupils come on contingent with great expense to 
 Government.' 
 
 I looked through the screen again with a 
 growing respect for Eamchunderji. ' Does he eat 
 them too ? ' I asked. 
 
 The head-master smiled the sickly smile of one 
 who is not quite sure if his superior officer intends 
 a joke, and fell back as usual on quotation, ' The 
 ostrich is supposed by some to digest nails, but — ' 
 
 I laughed aloud, and being discovered, went 
 out and spoke seriously to the offender. His 
 calm was not in the least disturbed. ' I do not
 
 172 RAMCHUXDERJI 
 
 ask, or beg/ he replied ; ' they give of their hearts 
 and their abundance, as in old days before the 
 flood. Is it my fault if they possess slate-pencils, 
 and ink-pots, and First-Lesson books ? ' 
 
 I must confess that this argument seemed to 
 me unanswerable, but I advised him, seeing that 
 the flood had come, to return such offerings in 
 future to the store. He did not take my advice, 
 and, about a week after, being discovered selling 
 these things to the bigger boys at a reduced price, 
 he was caned by the head -master. That night 
 he disappeared from the boarding-house and was 
 no more seen. His name was removed from the 
 rolls, his scholarship forfeited for absence without 
 leave, and the arrears absorbed in refunds for 
 slate-pencils and ink-pots. So that was an end 
 of Eamchunderji's schooling, and Standard I. once 
 more became amenable to the Code. 
 
 Winter was wanning to spring, the first bronze 
 vine leaves were budding, and the young wheat 
 shooting to silvery ears, before the Commissioner, 
 coming his rounds, was taken in pomp to visit the
 
 EAMCHUXDERJI 173 
 
 Orphanage and its occupants. I remember it so 
 well. Th^ Committee and the Commissioner, and 
 I, and every one interested in female orphans and 
 female education, on one side of a red baize table 
 decorated with posies of decayed rosebuds and 
 jasmin in green-glass tumblers ; and on the other 
 Seeta and the matron. The former, to enhance 
 her value as a genuine half-caste waif, was still a 
 mere bundle, and I fancied she looked smaller 
 than ever; perhaps because the veil was not so 
 large. Then the accounts were passed, and the 
 matron's report read. Xothing, she said, could be 
 more satisfactory than the general behaviour and 
 moral tone of the inmates, except in one point. 
 And this was the feeding of the monkeys, which, 
 as every one knew, infested the town. The result 
 being that the hunder-log had become bold even to 
 the dropping down of stones into the court — quite 
 large stones, such as the one placed as a stepping- 
 stone over the runnel of water from the well. 
 
 Here I unguardedly suggested an air-gun; 
 whereupon Xarayan Das, who always attended
 
 174 RAMCHUNDERJI 
 
 these functions as an educational authority, 
 reminded me reproachfully that monkeys were 
 sacred to the god Hunuman, who, if I remembered, 
 had finally rescued Seeta from the ten -headed, 
 many-armed monster Eavana, the inventor of the 
 ravandstron or beggar's fiddle. 
 
 It was at this juncture that I suddenly became 
 aware that the Jacquard loom of Fate was weaving 
 a pattern ; Eamchunderji ! Seeta 1 the exile ! the 
 killing of the wild beasts ! the ten-headed, many- 
 handed monster Eavana ! Yet I could tell you 
 almost every word of the Commissioner's speech, 
 though he prosed on for the next ten minutes 
 complacently about the pleasure he felt, and the 
 authorities felt, and the whole civilised world felt, 
 at seeing ' Money, the great curse and blessing of 
 humanity, employed as it should be employed 
 in snatching the female orphan of India from 
 unmerited misfortune, and educating her to be 
 an example to the nineteenth century.' Every 
 one was highly delighted, and the Committee 
 approached me with a view of adding the
 
 IIAMCHUNDERJI 175 
 
 Commissioner's name as a second title to the 
 school. 
 
 But I awaited the completion of the pattern. 
 It was on the eleventh of April, that is to say, on 
 the High Festival of Spring, at the fair held beside 
 the tank w^here humanity in thousands was w^ash- 
 ing away the old year, and putting on the new in 
 the shape of gay-coloured clothing, that my atten- 
 tion was attracted by a small, dense crowd whence 
 came hearty guffaws of laughter. 
 
 "Tis a performing monkey,' said a bearded 
 villager in response to my question as to what 
 was amusing them so hugely. 'The boy makes 
 him do tricks worthy of Hunuman ; yet he saith 
 he taught him yonder down by the canal. Will 
 not the Protector of the Poor step in and see ? 
 Ho, ho ! 'twould make a suitor laugh even if the 
 digri (decree) were against him.' But I recognised 
 the pattern this time, and I had made up my mind 
 not to interfere with the shuttle agam. As I 
 turned away, another roar of laughter and a 
 general feeling in pockets and turbans, told me
 
 176 EAMCHUNDERJI 
 
 that the final tip had succeeded, and that collec- 
 tion was going on satisfactorily. 
 
 A few days later the Chairman of the Committee 
 came to me in excited despair. The real, genuine 
 female Hindu orphan was not to be found, and 
 the stucco walls were once more empty. Inquiries 
 were made on all sides, but when it came out, 
 casually, that a boy, a girl, and a monkey, had 
 taken a third-class ticket to Benares I said nothing. 
 I was not going to aid Eavana, or prevent the due 
 course of incarnation, if it ivas an incarnation. 
 That great city of men, women, and monkeys 
 should give the trio fair play. 
 
 Last year, when I was in Simla, I overheard a 
 traveller giving his impressions of India to a lady 
 who was longing all the time to find out from 
 a gentleman with a moustache wdien the polo- 
 match was to begin at Annandale next day. 
 
 'The performing troupes are certainly above 
 the European average,' he said. 'At Benares, 
 especially, I remember seeing a monkey ; he, his 
 master, and a girl, did quite a variety of scenes
 
 EAMCHUNDEEJI 177 
 
 out of the Eamayana, and really, considering who 
 they were, I — ' 
 
 'Excuse me, — but — oh! Captain Smith, is it 
 half-past eleven or twelve ? ' 
 
 The vina still hangs in my collection next the 
 ravandstron. Sometimes I take it down and sound 
 the strings. But the waving palms, the odorous 
 thickets, and the shadowy, immortal forms have got 
 mixed up somehow with that infernal humming 
 and bumming of the four-anna bit. So I get no 
 help in trying to decide the question, — ' AYho was 
 Eamchunderji ? ' 
 
 VOL. I N
 
 V 
 
 HEEEA NUND 
 
 He stood in the verandah, salaaming with both 
 hands, in each of which he held a bouquet — round- 
 topped, compressed, prim little posies, with fat 
 bundles of stalk bound spirally with date-fibre ; 
 altogether more like ninepins than bouquets, for 
 the time of flowers was not yet, and only a few ill- 
 conditioned rosebuds, suggestive of worms, and a 
 dejected clmm'pak or two, showed amongst the green. 
 The holder w^as hardly more decorative than 
 the posies. Bandy, hairy brown legs, with toes 
 set wide open by big brass rings, — a sight bring- 
 ing discomfort within one's own slippers from 
 sheer sympathy; a squat body, tightly buttoned 
 into a sleeveless white coat ; a face of mild 
 ugliness overshadowed by an immaculately white
 
 HEERA NUND 179 
 
 turban. From the coral and Q;old necklace round 
 
 o 
 
 his thick throat, and the crescent-shaped ear-rings 
 in his spreading ears, I guessed him to be of the 
 Arain caste. He was, in fact, Heera Xund, 
 gardener to my new landlord ; therefore, for the 
 present, my servant. Had I inquired into the 
 matter, I should probably have found that his 
 forebears had cultivated the surroundino; land for 
 centuries; certainly long years before masterful 
 men from the West had jotted down their trivial 
 boundary pillars to divide Hght from darkness, the 
 black man from the white, cantonments from the 
 rest of God's earth. One of these little white 
 pillars stood in a corner of my garden, and be- 
 yond it lay an illimitable stretch of bare brown 
 plain, waiting till the young wheat came to clothe 
 its nakedness. 
 
 I did not inquire, however ; few people do in 
 India. Perhaps they are intimidated by the ex- 
 treme antiquity of all things, and dread letting 
 loose the floodgates of garrulous memory. Be 
 that as it may, I was content to accept the fact
 
 180 HEERA NUND 
 
 that Heera Niind, whether representmg ancestral 
 proprietors or not, had come to congratulate me, 
 a stranger, on having taken, not only the house, 
 but the garden also. The sahibs, he said, went 
 home so often nowadays that they had ceased to 
 care for gardens. This one having been in a con- 
 tractor's hands for years had become, as it were, a 
 miserable low-degree native place. In fact, he 
 had found it necessary to steep his own know- 
 ledge in oblivion in order that content should 
 grow side by side with country vegetables. Yet 
 he had not forgotten the golden age, when, under 
 the cGgis of some judge with a mysterious name, 
 he, too, Heera iSTund the Arain, had raised celery 
 and beetroot, French beans and artichokes, aspa- 
 ragus and parsley. He reeled off the English 
 names with a glibness and inaccuracy in which, 
 somehow, there lurked a pathetic dignity. Then 
 suddenly, from behind a favouring pillar, lie 
 sprung upon me the usual native offering, consist- 
 ing of a flat basket decorated with a few coarse 
 vec^etables. A bunch of rank-smelling turnips,
 
 HEERA XUND 181 
 
 half-a-dozen blue radishes ruiiiimg two to the 
 pound, various heaps of native greens, a bit off' an 
 overblown cauliflower proclamiing its bazaar 
 origin by the turmeric powder adhering to it in 
 patches, a leaf-cup of mint ornamented by tw^o 
 glowing chillies. He laid the wiiole at my feet 
 with a profound obeisance. ' This dust-like offer- 
 ing,' he said gravely, ' is all that the good C4od 
 {Kliuda) can give to the saliib. Let the Presence 
 {HiLZOor) wait a few months and see what Heera 
 Nund can do for him.' 
 
 I shall not soon forget the ludicrous solemnity 
 of voice and gesture, or the simple self-importance, 
 overlaying the ugly face with the smile of a cat 
 licking cream. 
 
 I did not see him again for some days, for 
 accession to a new office curtails leisure. When, 
 however, I found time for a stroll round my new 
 domain I discovered Heera ISTund hard at work. 
 His coatee hung on a bush ; his bare, brown back 
 glistened in the sunshine as he stooped down to 
 deepen a watercourse with his adze-like shovel.
 
 182 HEERA NUND 
 
 A brake of sugar-cane, red-brown and gold, 
 showed where the garden proper merged into the 
 peasants' land beyond ; for the well, whence the 
 water came that flowed round Heera Nund's 
 hidden feet as he stood in the runnel, irrigated 
 quite a large stretch of the fields around my hold- 
 ing. The well-wheel creaked in recurring dis- 
 cords, every now and again giving out a note or 
 two as if it were going to begin a tune. The red 
 evening sun shone through the mango-trees, 
 where the green parrots hung like unripe fruit. 
 The bullocks circled round and round ; the water 
 dripped and gurgled. 
 
 ' How about the seeds I sent you ? " I asked, 
 when Heera Nund drew his wet feet from the 
 stream, and composing himself for the effort, pro- 
 duced an elaborate salaam. 
 
 He left humility behind him as he stalked 
 over to a narrow strip of ground on the other side 
 of the well, a long strip portioned out into squares 
 and circles like a doll's garden, with tiny one- 
 span walks between.
 
 HEERA XUND 183 
 
 ' Behold 1 ' he said, ' his Honour will observe 
 that the cabbao-e caste have life alreadv.' 
 
 Truly enough the half-covered seeds showed 
 gussets of white in their brown jackets. ' But 
 where are the tickets ? I sent word specially 
 that you were to be sure and stick the labels on 
 each bed. How am I to know which is which ? ' 
 
 'The Presence can see that the sticks are 
 there,' he answered with a superior smile ; ' but 
 there are others beside the sahibs who love 
 tickets.' 
 
 He pointed to the tree above us, where on a 
 branch sat a peculiarly bushy-tailed squirrel, 
 as happy as a king over the brussels-sprouts' 
 wrapper, which he was crumpling into a ball 
 with deft hands and sharp teeth. How I came to 
 know it was this particular wrapper happened 
 thus : I threw my cap at the offender, and in his 
 flight he dropped the paper on my bald head ; it 
 was hard, and had points. 
 
 'They are misbegotten devils,' remarked 
 Heera cheerfully; 'but they are building nests,
 
 184 HEERA NUND 
 
 saliih, and like to paper the inside. Notwith- 
 standing, the Presence need fear no confusion ; 
 his slave has many names in his head. This is 
 arly ivalkrin (Early Walcheren), that is droo7nade 
 (Drumhead), yonder is dookoyarJc (Duke of York), 
 and that, that, and that — ' He would have 
 gone on interminably, had I not changed the sub- 
 ject by asking what was growing beneath a dila- 
 pidated hand-light, which stood next to a sturdy 
 crop of broad-cast radishes. Only a few panes of 
 glass remained intact, but the vacancies had been 
 neatly supplied by coarse muslin. The gardener's 
 face, always simple in expression, became quite 
 homogeneous with pure content. 
 
 ' Hiizoor ! It is the mdlin (female gardener) ! ' 
 * The mdlin ! What on earth do you mean ? ' 
 Have you ever watched the face of a general 
 servant when she takes the covers off the Christ- 
 mas dinner ? Have you ever seen a very young 
 conjurer lift his father's hat to show you that the 
 handkerchief (which he has palpably secreted 
 elsewhere) is no longer in its legitimate hiding-
 
 HEEKA NUND 185 
 
 place ? Something of that mingled triumph and 
 fear lest some accident may have befallen skill 
 in the interim showed itself in Heera Xund's 
 countenance as he removed the light with a 
 flourish, thus disclosing to view a fat and remark- 
 ably black baby asleep on a bed of leaves. It 
 was attired in a pah of silver bangles, and a 
 Maw's feeding-bottle grew, like some new kind of 
 root-crop, from the ground beside it. 
 
 'My daughter, Huzoor — httle Dhropudi the 
 mdlin! 
 
 His voice thrilled even my bachelor ears as he 
 squatted down and began mechanically to fan the 
 swift-gathering flies from the sleeping child. 
 
 ' You seem to be very fond of her,' I remarked 
 after a pause. ' It is only a girl after all. Have 
 you no son ? ' 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 ' She is the only one, and I waited for her ten 
 years. Ten long years ; so I was glad even to get 
 a mdlin. Dhropudi grows as fast as a boy, 
 almost as fast as the Huzoor s cabbages. Only
 
 186 HEERA NUND 
 
 the other day she was no bigger than my 
 hand.' 
 
 ' Your wife is dead, I suppose ? ' The question 
 was, perhaps, a little brutal, but it was so unusual 
 to see a man doing dry nurse to a baby girl, that 
 I took it for granted that the mother had died 
 months before, at the child's birth. I never saw 
 a face change more rapidly than his ; the simpli- 
 city left it, and in place thereof came a curious 
 anxiety such as a child might show with the 
 dawning conviction that it has lost itself. 
 
 ' She is not at all dead, Huzoor ; on the contrary 
 she is very young. Children cry sometimes, and 
 my house does not like crying. You see, when 
 people are young they require more sleep ; when 
 she is old as I am she will be able to keep awake.' 
 
 His tone was argumentative, as if he were 
 reasoning the matter out for his own edification. 
 ' Not that Dhropudi keeps me awake often,' he 
 added, in hasty apology to that infant's reputation ; 
 ' considering how young a person she is, her ways 
 are very straight-walking and meek.'
 
 HEERA NUND 187 
 
 ' If she cries you can always stop her with the 
 watering-pot, I suppose.' 
 
 He looked shocked at the suggestion. 
 
 ' Huzoor ! it is not difficult to stop them ; such 
 a very little thing pleases a baby. Sometimes it 
 is the sunshine, — sometimes it is the wind in the 
 trees, — sometimes it is the birds, or the squirrels, 
 or the flowers. When it is tired of these there is 
 always the milk in its stomach. Dhropudi's goat 
 is yonder ; it lives on your Honour's weeds. You 
 are her father and her mother.' 
 
 However much I might repudiate the relation- 
 ship, I soon became quite accustomed to finding 
 Dhropudi in the most unexpected places in my 
 garden. For, soon after my first introduction to 
 her, the claims of an early crop of lettuces to 
 protection from the squirrels led Heera Xund to 
 transfer the hand-Hght from one of his charges 
 to another. Dhropudi, he said, could grow nicely 
 without it now ; the black ants could not carry 
 her off, and the squirrels had quite begun to 
 recognise that she w^as of the race of Adam. At
 
 188 HEERA NUND 
 
 first, however, he took precautions against mis- 
 takes, and many a time I have seen the sleeping 
 child stuck round with pea-sticks, or decorated 
 with fluttering feathers on a string, to scare away 
 the birds. Sometimes she was blanching with the 
 celery, and once I nearly trod on her as she lay 
 among the toppings in a thick plantation of 
 blossoming beans. But she never came to harm ; 
 the only misadventure being when her father 
 would lay her to sleep in some dry water channel, 
 and, forgetting which one it was, turn the shallow 
 stream that way. Then there would be a moment- 
 ary outcry at the cold bath ; but the next, she 
 would be pacified with a flower, and sit in the sun 
 to dry, for to say sooth, no more good-tempered 
 child ever existed than Dhropudi. In this, at any 
 rate, she was like her father, though I could trace 
 no resemblance in other ways. ' She is like my 
 house,' he would say, when I noticed the fact. 
 ' She is young, and I am old, — quite old.' 
 
 Indeed, as time passed I saw that Heera Nund 
 was older than I thought at first. Before the
 
 HEERA NUND 189 
 
 barber came in the morning there was quite a 
 silver stubble on his bronze cheek, and his bright, 
 restless eyes were haggard and anxious. Despite 
 his almost comic jauntiness and self-importance, 
 he struck me as having a hunted look at times, 
 especially when he came out from the mud- walled 
 enclosure at the further end of the garden, where 
 his 'house' lived. He went there but seldom, 
 spending his days in tending Dhropudi and his 
 plants with an almost extravagant devotion. His 
 state of mind when that young lady used her new 
 accomplishment of crawling, to the detriment of 
 a bed of sootvllians (Sweet Williams) in which he 
 took special pride, was quite pathetic. I found 
 him simply howling between regret for the plants 
 and fear lest I should order punishment to the 
 ofiender. His gratitude when I laughed was 
 unbounded. 
 
 After this Dhropudi used to be set in a twelve- 
 inch pot, half sunk in the ground, where she would 
 stay contentedly for hours, drumming the sides 
 with a carrot, while Heera weeded and dibbled.
 
 190 HEERA NUND 
 
 ' She grows/ he would say, snatching her up 
 fiercely in his arms ; ' she grows as all my plants 
 grow. See my sootullians ! They will blossom 
 soon, and then all the saliihs will come and say, 
 " See the sootullians which Heera Nund and Dhro- 
 pudi have grow^n for the Hazoorr ' 
 
 Yet with all this blazoning of content the man 
 was curiously restless— almost like a child in his 
 desire for action and vivid interest in trivialities. 
 ' See the misbegotten creature I have found eating 
 the honourable Huzoors roots ! ' he would say, 
 casting a wire-worm on the verandah steps, and 
 dancing on it vindictively. ' It was in the Huzoors 
 carnations, but by the blessing of God and Heera 
 Nund's vigilance it is dead. Nothing escapes me. 
 Have I not fought wire -worms since the begin- 
 ning of all things, I and my fathers ? We kill 
 all creeping, crawling things, except the holy 
 snake that brings fruit and blossom to the garden.' 
 
 One night I was disturbed by unseemly noises, 
 coming apparently from the servants' quarters ; 
 but my remonstrances next morning were met, by
 
 HEERA NUND 191 
 
 my bearer, with swift denial. ' It is Heera. He, 
 poor man, has to beat his wife ahnost every night 
 now. I wonder the Presence has not heard her 
 before ; she screams very loud.' 
 
 I stood aghast. 
 
 ' He should let her go, or kill her,' continued 
 the bearer placidly. ' She is not worth the trouble 
 of beating : but he is a fool, because she is Dhro- 
 pudi's mother. Yes, he is a fool ; he beats her 
 when he finds her lover there. He should beat 
 her well before the man comes. That is the best 
 way with women.' 
 
 It was an old story, it seemed, dating before 
 Dhropudi's appearance on the scene. It occurred 
 to me that perhaps a deeper tragedy than I had 
 thought for was ripening in my garden among the 
 ripening plants. I found myself watching Dhro- 
 pudi and her father with an almost morbid interest, 
 and hoping that, if my idle suspicion was right, 
 kindly fate might hide the truth away for ever 
 in the bottom of that well where Heera often 
 held the child to smile at her own reflection, far
 
 192 HEERA NUND 
 
 down where the water showed hke a huge 
 round dewdrop. 
 
 So time went on, until the sootnllians showed 
 blossom buds, and Dhropudi cut her first tooth on 
 one and the same day. Perhaps the excitement 
 of the double event was too much for Heera's 
 nerves ; perhaps what happened was due anyhow ; 
 but as I strolled through the garden that evening 
 at sundown I saw the most comically pathetic 
 sight my eyes ever beheld. Heera Nund, clothed, 
 but not in his right mind, was dancing a can-can 
 among his sootnllians, while Dhropudi shrieked 
 with delight and beat frantically on her flower- 
 pot. Even with the knowledge of all that came 
 after, the remembrance provokes a smile. The 
 rhythmic bobbing up and down of the uncouth 
 figure, the cow-like kicks of the bandy legs, the 
 preternaturally grave face above, the crushed 
 soottdliccns below. 
 
 I sent him in charge of two sepoys to the 
 Dispensary, and there he remained for two 
 months, more or less. When he came back he
 
 HEERA NUND 193 
 
 was very quiet, very thin, and there were the 
 marks of several blisters on the back of his head. 
 He resumed work cheerfully, with many apologies 
 for having been ill, and once more he and Dhro- 
 pudi — who had been handed over meantime, 
 under police supervision, to her mother — were to 
 be found spending their days together in amicable 
 companionship. His only regrets being, appar- 
 ently, that the sootullians had blossomed and 
 Dhropudi learnt to walk in his absence. 
 
 But for one or two little eccentricities I might 
 have been tempted to forget that can-can among 
 the flowers ; indeed, I always met his inquiries as 
 to the sootullians with the remark that they had 
 done as well as could be expected in the circum- 
 stances. The eccentricities, however, if few, were 
 striking. One was his exaggerated gratitude for 
 the blisters on the back of his head ; the last 
 thing in the world one would have thought likely 
 to produce an outburst of that Christian virtue. 
 But it did, and an allusion to the all too visible 
 
 scars invariably crowned the frequent recital 
 VOL. I ■
 
 194 HEERA NUND 
 
 of the benefits he had received at my hands. 
 Another was the difficulty he had in distinguish- 
 ing Dhropudi from the other fruits of his labour. 
 On two separate occasions she formed part of the 
 daily basket of vegetables which he brought in to 
 me, and very quaint the little black morsel looked 
 sitting surrounded by tomatoes and melons. But 
 though he treated the matter as an elaborate joke 
 when I remarked on it, there was a dazed, uncertain 
 look in his eyes as if he were not quite sure as to 
 the right end of the stick. 
 
 Nevertheless peace and contentment reigned 
 apparently in his house. When I sat out in the 
 dark, hot evenings, a glow of flickering firelight 
 from within showed the mysterious mnd-walled 
 enclosure by the wall, decorous and conventional. 
 The winking stars looking down into it knew 
 more of the life within than I did, but at any rate 
 no unseemly cries disturbed the scented night air 
 and the Huzoors slumbers. Perhaps the police 
 supervision had impressed the lover with the 
 dangers of lurking house-trespass by night; per-
 
 HEERA NUND 195 
 
 haps the dark-browed, heavy -jowled young woman 
 who had taken my warning so sullenly had learnt 
 more craft ; perhaps the languor which creeps 
 over all things in May had sucked the vigour 
 even from passion. Who could say? Those 
 crumbling mud walls hid it all, and Heera seemed 
 to have begun a new Hfe with the hot -weather 
 vegetables. 
 
 So matters stood when an old enemy laid hold 
 of me. Ten days after I found myself racing 
 Death with a determination to reach the sea, and 
 feel the salt west wind on my face before he and 
 I closed with each other. The strange hurry and 
 eagerness of it all come back to some of us like a 
 nightmare, years after the exile is over. The 
 doctor's verdict, the swift packing of a trunk or 
 two, the hope, the fear, the mad longing at least 
 to see the dear faces once more. 
 
 They packed me and a half- hundred pillows 
 into a palki ghdri one afternoon. The servants 
 stood, white clad, in a row beside the white pillars, 
 dazzling in the slanting sunlight. I drove through
 
 196 HEERA NUND 
 
 the flower garden dusty and scorched. At the 
 gate stood Heera ISTund, one arm occupied by 
 Dhropudi, the other supporting a huge basket of 
 vegetables. He looked uncertain which to present ; 
 finally, seeing the carriage drive on, he deliberately 
 let the basket fall, and running to my side, thrust 
 the child's chubby hands forward. They held just 
 such ninepin bouquets as he had carried on our 
 first introduction. ' Take them, saliih ! ' he cried. 
 ' Take them for luck ! and come back soon to the 
 mail and the mCdin! As the glidri turned sharp 
 down the road I saw him standing amidst 
 the ruins of the basket with Dhropudi in his 
 arms. 
 
 Six months passed before I set foot on Indian 
 soil again, and then fate and a restless Govern- 
 ment sent me to a new station, '\^^len my ser- 
 vants arrived with my baggage from the old one, 
 I naturally fell to asking questions. 'And how 
 is Heera ISTund ? ' was one. My bearer smiled 
 benignly. ' Huzoor, he is well, — in the month of 
 July he was hanged.'
 
 HEEKA NUND 
 
 197 
 
 ' Bearer ! ' 
 
 ' Without doubt : it was in the month of July. 
 He killed his wife with an axe. Dhropudi was 
 bitten by a snake while she slept one day when 
 Heera had to leave her with her mother; and 
 that night he killed his wife as she slept also. 
 It was a mistake to be so revengeful, for 
 every one knew Dhropudi was not really his 
 daughter.' 
 
 ' Do you think that Heera knew ? ' 
 
 'She told him when the child died, in order 
 to stop his grief; but it did not. She was very 
 kind to him, — after the other one went to prison 
 for lurking about.' 
 
 'And did no one tell about it all ? ' 
 
 * About what, Huzoor ? ' 
 
 ' About the vegetables, and Dhropudi, and the 
 sootullians, and the blisters on the back of his head ! 
 Did no one say the man was mad ? ' 
 
 ' There was a new assistant at the Dispensary, 
 sahib, and her people were very rich ; besides, 
 Heera was not mad at all. He did it on purpose.
 
 198 HEERA NUND 
 
 He was a bad man, and the Sirkar did right to 
 hang him, — in July.' 
 
 But as I turned away I could think of nothing 
 but that can-can among the sootullians, with little 
 Dhropudi beating time with a carrot.
 
 FEKOZA 
 
 Two hen sparrows quarrelling over a feather, 
 while a girl watched them listlessly ; for the rest, 
 sunshine imprisoned by blank walls, save where at 
 one end a row of scalloped arches gave on two 
 shallow, shadowy, verandah -rooms, and at the 
 other a low doorway led to the world beyond. But 
 even this was veiled by a brick screen, forced by 
 the light into unison with the brick building be- 
 hind. The girl sat with her back against the wall, 
 her knees drawn up to her chin, and her little, bare, 
 brown feet moulding themselves in the warm, sun- 
 steeped dust of the courtyard. In the hands 
 clasped round her green trousers she held an un- 
 opened letter from which the London post-mark 
 stared up into the brazen Indian sky. She was
 
 200 FEROZA 
 
 waiting to have it read to her — waiting with a dnll, 
 ahnost sullen patience, for the afternoon was still 
 young. It was old enough, however, to make a 
 sheeted figure in the shadow sit up on its 
 string bed and yawn because siesta time was 
 past. 
 
 ' Still thinking of thy letter, Feroz ? Bismillali I 
 I'm glad my man doesn't live in a country where 
 the women go about half naked.' 
 
 * "Who told thee so, Kareem ? The Meer sahib 
 said naught.' 
 
 A light laugh seemed prisoned in the echoing 
 walls. ' Wah ! How canst tell ? 'Tis father-in- 
 law reads thy letters. Inaiyut saith so. He saw 
 them at Delhi dancing like bad ones with — ' 
 
 ' Peace, Kareema ! Hast no decency ? ' 
 
 ' Enough for my years, whilst thou art more 
 like a grandam than a scarce-wed girl. Why 
 should not Inaiyut be a man ? A husband is none 
 the worse for knowing a pretty woman when he 
 sees one.' 
 
 She settled the veil on her sleek l^lack head and
 
 FEROZA 201 
 
 laughed again. Feroza Begum's small brown face 
 hardened mto scorn. ' Inaiyut hath experience 
 and practice in the art doubtless, as he hath in 
 cock-fightmg and dicmg.' 
 
 ' Now, don't gibe at him for that. Sure 'tis the 
 younger son's portion amongst us jMoguls. Do I 
 sneer at thy Meer amusing himself over the black 
 water amongst the merns ? ' 
 
 '•The Meer is not amusing himself. He is 
 learning to be a barrister.' 
 
 Kareema swung her legs to the ground witli an- 
 other giggle. ' Wall ! Men are men all the world 
 over, and so are women. Yea I 'tis true.' She 
 looked like some gay butterfly as she flashed out 
 into the sunlight, and began with outstretched 
 arms and floating veil to imitate the sidelong graces 
 of a dancing giii. 
 
 ' Hai ! Hai ! Bad one ! ' cried a quavering 
 voice behind her, as an old woman clutching for 
 scant covering at a dirty white sheet shambled 
 forward. ' Can I not close an eye but thou must 
 bring iniquity to respectable houses ? 'Tis all thy
 
 202 FEROZA 
 
 scapegrace husband; for when I brought thee 
 hither thou wast meek-spirited and — ' 
 
 'Deck me not out with lies, nurse/ laughed 
 Kareema. ' Sure I was ever to behaviour as a 
 babe to walking — unsteady on its legs. So wast 
 thou as a bride ; so are all women.' She seized the 
 withered old arms as she spoke, and threw them 
 up in an attitude. ' Dance, Mytaben ! dance ! 
 'Tis the best way.' 
 
 The forced frown faded hopelessly before the 
 young, dimpling face. ' Kareema ! Why will'st 
 not be decent like little Feroz yonder ? ' 
 
 ' Why ? Because my man thinks I'm pretty ! 
 Because I've fine clothes 1 Feroza hath old green 
 trousers and her man is learning to be " ivise^' for- 
 sooth ! amongst the mems. So she is jealous — ' 
 
 ' I'm not jealous,' interrupted the other hotly. 
 
 ' Peace, peace, little doves ! ' expostulated the 
 old nurse. ' Feroz is no fool to be jealous of a mem. 
 Holy Prophet, Kareem ! hadst thou seen them at 
 Delhi as I have — ' 
 
 ' Inaiyut hath seen them too. He saith they are
 
 FEKOZA 203 
 
 as houris in silks and satins with bare breasts and 
 arms — ' 
 
 Mytaben's bony fingers crackled in a shake of 
 horrified denial. ' Silence ! shameless one I I tell 
 thee they have no beauty, no clothes — ' 
 
 ' There I I said they had no clothes/ pouted 
 Kareema. 
 
 The duenna folded her sheet round her with 
 great dignity. ' Thy wit is sharp, Kareem ! 'Tis 
 as well ; for thou wilt need it to protect thy nose ! 
 The mems have many clothes ; God knows how 
 many, or how they bear them when even the skin 
 He gives is too hot. They are sad-coloured, these 
 mems, with green spectacles serving as veils. Not 
 that they need them, for they are virtuous and 
 keep then* eyes from men truck. Not like bad 
 bold hussies who dance — ' 
 
 "Tis not true,' cried Kareema shrilly. 'Thou 
 sayest it to please Feroza. Inaiyut holds they are 
 Jiouris for beauty, and he knows.' 
 
 In the wrangle which ensued the London post- 
 mark revolved between earth and heaven as the
 
 204 FEROZA 
 
 letter turned over and over in Feroza's listless 
 fingers. 
 
 'I wish I knew/ she muttered with a frown 
 puckering her forehead. ' He saith they are so 
 wise, and yet — ' 
 
 Mytaben paused in the war of words and laid 
 her wrinkled old fingers on the girl's head. 
 ' Plague on new-fangled ways ! ' she grumbled 
 half to herself. ' Have no fear, heart's life ! they 
 are uncomely. But for all that, 'tis a shame of 
 the Meer to leave thee pining.' 
 
 A hand was on her mouth. ' Hush, Mytaben ! 
 Tis a wife's duty to wait her lord's pleasure to 
 stay or come.' 
 
 There is a dignity in submission, but Kareema 
 laughed again, and even old Mytab looked at the 
 girl compassionately. Tor all that, heart's life, 
 'tis well to be sure. Certainty soothes the liver 
 more than hope. So thou shalt see a mem. For 
 lo ! the book-readers have come to this town, 
 and one passeth the door every eve at sun- 
 down,'
 
 FEROZA 205 
 
 ' Oh, Mytab ! why didn't you tell us before ? ' 
 cried both the girls in a breath. 
 
 ' Because 'tis enough as it is, to keep two 
 married girls straight, with never a mother-in-law 
 to make them dance to her tune/ grumbled the 
 nurse evasively. * Hai, Kareema ! I will tell thy 
 father-in-law the Moulvie,^ and then 'twill be 
 bread and water.' 
 
 ' Bread and water is not good for brides,' re- 
 torted Kareema with a giggle. ' And I will see the 
 mems too, or I will cry, and then — ' She nodded 
 her head maliciously. 
 
 That evening at sundown the two girls sat 
 huddled up by the latticed window^ of the outer 
 vestibule, while Mytab watched at the door of the 
 men's court which, with that of the women's 
 apartments, opened into this shadowy entrance. 
 By putting their eyes close to the fret-work they 
 could see up and down a narrow alley where a 
 central drain, full of black sewage, usurped the 
 larger half of the rough brick pavement. 
 
 ^ A Mohammedan preacher.
 
 206 FEROZA 
 
 ' Look, Feroza ! look ! ' cried Kareema in a 
 choked voice. A white umbrella lined with green, 
 a huge pith hat tied round with a blue veil, a 
 gingham dress, a bag of books, white stockings, and 
 tan shoes, — that was all. They watched the 
 strange apparition breathlessly till it came abreast 
 of them. Then Kareema's pent-up mirth burst 
 forth in peals of laughter so distinctly audible 
 through the open lattice that the cause stopped in 
 surprise. 
 
 Feroza started to her feet. 'For shame, 
 Kareem, for shame ! He says they are so good.' 
 And before they guessed what she would be at, 
 the wicket-gate was open, and she was on the 
 bare, indecent doorstep. 
 
 ' Salaam ! mem sahib, salaam ! ' rang her high- 
 pitched, girlish voice. ' I, Feroza Begum of the 
 house of Meer Ahmed Ali, barrister-at-law, am 
 glad to see you.' 
 
 Before Kareema, by hanging on to Mytab's 
 scanty attire, lent weight enough to drag the 
 offender back to seclusion, the English lady raised
 
 FEROZA 207 
 
 her veil, and Feroza Begum, MoguK, caught her 
 first glimpse of a pair of mild blue eyes. She 
 never forgot the introduction to Miss Julia Smith, 
 spinster of Clapham. Perhaps she had reason to 
 remember it. 
 
 ' I might have believed it of Kareem,' whim- 
 pered the duenna over a consolatory pipe, 'but 
 Feroz ! To stand out in the world yelling like 
 a hawker. Ai, Ail Give me your quiet ones 
 for wickedness. Phut ! in a moment, like water 
 from the skin-bag, spoiling everything.' 
 
 ' 'Twas Kareem's laugh burst the maslik, nursie,' 
 laughed Feroza. She and her sister-in-law seemed 
 to have changed places for the time, and she 
 was flitting about gay as a wren, while the 
 former sulked moodily on her bed. 
 
 Yet as the days passed a new jealousy came 
 like seven devils to possess poor Feroza utterly. 
 Wliat was this wisdom which inspired so many 
 well-turned periods in the Meer's somewhat prosy 
 letters ? Beauty was beyond her, but women 
 even of her race had been wise ; passionate Nurje-
 
 208 FEPtOZA 
 
 han, and even pious Fatma, — God forgive her for 
 evening her chances with that saintly woman's ! 
 The thought led to such earnest study of the 
 Koran that old Mytab's wrath was mollified into 
 a hope of permanent penitence. And all the 
 time the girl's heart was singing p?eans of praise 
 over the ease with which she remembered the 
 long strings of meaningless words. Buoyed up by 
 hope she confided her heart's desire to Kareema. 
 
 'Eat more butter and grow fat/ replied that 
 little coquette. ' Dress in bright colours and 
 redden thy lips. And thou mightst use that 
 powder the mems have to make their skins fair. 
 Inaiyut saith he will buy me some in the bazaar. 
 That is true wisdom ; the other is for wrinkles.' 
 
 Despite this cold water, the very next London 
 post-mark brought matters to a crisis. 
 
 ' Is that all ? ' asked Feroza dismally, when 
 her father-in-law, the Moulvie, had duly intoned 
 her husband's letter. ' It looks, oh ! it looks 
 ever so much more on paper.' 
 
 The old Mohammedan stared through his big
 
 FEKOZA 209 
 
 horn-riinmed spectacles at her reluctant finger 
 feeling its way along the crabbed writing. 
 
 ' Quite enough for a good wife, daaghter-in- 
 law/ he replied. ' Bring my pipe, and thank God 
 he is well.' 
 
 As she sat fanning the old man duteously, her 
 mind was full of suspicion. Could she have com- 
 pressed the desire and love of her heart into a 
 few well-turned sentences ? Ah ! if she could 
 only learn to read for herself. The thought 
 found utterance in a tentative remark that it 
 would save theMoulvie trouble if she were a scholar. 
 
 "Tis not much trouble,' said the old man 
 courteously ; ' the letters are not long.' 
 
 The effect of these words surprised him into 
 
 taking off his spectacles, as if this new departure 
 
 of quiet Feroza's could be better seen by the 
 
 naked eye. 
 
 ' So thou thinkest to learn all the Meer has 
 
 learnt?' he asked scornfully, when her eloquence 
 
 abated. ' Wah illali ! AMiat ? Euclidus and 
 
 Algebra, Political Economy and Justinian V 
 VOL. I p
 
 210 FEROZA 
 
 The desire of the girl's heart was not this, but 
 jealousy and shame combined prevented her de- 
 claring the real standard of her aims, so she 
 replied defiantly, ' Why not ? I can learn the 
 Koran fast, — oh, ever so fast.' 
 
 It was an unfortunate speech, since it brought 
 down on her the inevitable reply that such know- 
 ledge was enough for those who, at best, must 
 enter Paradise at a man's coat-tails. Driven into 
 a corner she felt the hopelessness of the struggle, 
 until, flushed by success, the Moulvie forgot 
 caution, and declaimed against his son's stupidity 
 in desiring more. 
 
 Feroza. seized on this slip swiftly. If it was as 
 she feared, if her husband's wishes w^ere kept 
 from her ignorance, she must, she would learn. 
 If she could not go to school, the mems would 
 come and teach her at home. They did such 
 work at Delhi ; why not here ? As for the 
 Moulvie's determination that no singing should 
 be heard in his house, that was a righteous wish, 
 and she would tell the mems not to sing their
 
 FEROZA 211 
 
 hymns. Indeed, such a question seemed all too 
 trivial for comparison with her future happiness. 
 Therefore her disappointment when Mytaben 
 brought back a peremptory refusal from the 
 mission-ladies to teach on such condition was 
 very keen. Her piteous, surprised tears roused 
 Kareema's scornful wonder. 
 
 ' I can't think why thou shouldst weep ; it 
 tliickens the nose, and thine is over-broad as it is. 
 Inaiyut offered once to teach me, but when I 
 asked him if learning would make him love me 
 better, he kissed me with a laugh. So I let it 
 alone.' 
 
 ' Thou dost not understand,' sobbed Feroza ; 
 ' no one does. The Meer is wise, and I am 
 different.' 
 
 ' Wall! Thou art but a woman at best, and 
 life is over for us with the first wrinkle, no 
 matter what we learn. Ah, Feroz ! let's enjoy 
 youth whilst we have it. See ! I have a rare bit 
 of fun for thee if thou wilt not blab to Mytaben. 
 Promise ! '
 
 212 FEROZA 
 
 Three days afterwards Feroza, escaping from 
 the turmoil of a great marriage in a relative's 
 house, found herself, much to her own surprise 
 and bewilderment, forming one of a merry party 
 of young women disguised in boys' clothes, and 
 bound for an hour or so of high jinks in one of 
 the walled orange gardens which lay on the out- 
 skirts of the quarter. The idea, which had at first 
 filled her with dismay, had next grown tempting, 
 and then become irresistible with Kareema's art- 
 ful suggestion that it would give occasion for a 
 personal interview with the mission-ladies who 
 had taken up theii- abode close by. So she had 
 allowed her doubts and fears to be allayed ; 
 though inwardly she failed to see the vast differ- 
 ence on which her sister-in-law insisted, between 
 the iniquity of standing on doorsteps in the full 
 light of day, and sneaking out at night on the 
 quiet. 
 
 ' Yerily,' said Kareema in a pet, ' thou art a 
 real noodle, Feroz ! I tell thee all the good-style 
 women do thus, and my sister will be there with
 
 FEROZA 213 
 
 her boys. IVah ! were it not for my handsome 
 Inaiyut, I should die in this dull old house where 
 folk wish to be better than God made them.' 
 
 So it came to pass that while Miss Julia Smith, 
 spinster of Clapham, sat with her fellow-workers 
 in the verandah resting after their labours, a 
 boyish figure with a beating heart was creepmg 
 towards her as the goal of every hope. 
 
 The English mail was in ; an event which 
 by accentuating the severance from home ties is 
 apt to raise the enthusiasm of the mission-house 
 beyond normal. 
 
 ' How very, very interesting it is about the 
 young man Ahmed Ali,' remarked Julia in a 
 voice tuned to superlatives. ' Dearest Mrs. Crans- 
 ton WTites that he spoke so sweetly about his 
 ignorant child -wife. As she says, there is some- 
 thing so, — so, — so comforting, you know, in the 
 thought of work coming to us, as if, — well, I can't 
 quite express it, you know, — but from our own 
 homes, — from dear, dear, old England ! ' 
 
 There was a large amount of confused good
 
 214 FEROZA 
 
 feeling in Julia Smith. A kindly soul she was, 
 if a little over sentimental. Perhaps a broken 
 sixpence, stored side by side with a decayed vege- 
 table in her desk, formed a creditable explanation 
 of the latter weakness. Such things account for 
 much in the lives of most women. 
 
 ' I suppose,' she continued, ' we were right to 
 refuse without hymns ; but I shall never forget 
 the sweet child's face as she popped from her 
 prison. I am making up the incident for our 
 magazine ; it will be most touching. But now 
 that dearest Mrs. Cranston has written, it seems 
 like the finger of Providence — ' 
 
 ' A boy wanting a Miss,' interrupted the nonde- 
 script familiar, inseparable from philanthropy in 
 India. ' The one with an umbrella, a big hat, and 
 a bag of books.' 
 
 . A very womanly laugh with an undercurrent 
 of militant pleasure, ran round the company. The 
 description fitted one and all, and they were proud 
 of the fact. 
 
 The moon shone briajht behind the arches, the
 
 FEROZA 215 
 
 scent of orange blossoms drifted over the high 
 garden wall, and every now and again a burst of 
 laughter close at hand overbore the more distant 
 noise of wedding drums and pipes. 
 
 ' What do you want, my son ? ' 
 
 The soft voice with its strange inflections took 
 away the last vestige of Feroza's courage. She 
 stood dizzy with absolute fear, her tongue cleaving 
 to her mouth. A repetition of the question roused 
 her to the memory that here lay her one chance. 
 She gave a despairing glance into the gloom in 
 search of those pale blue eyes; then, suddenly, 
 inheritance broke through her terror. She flung 
 her hands up to heaven, and her young voice rose 
 in the traditional cry for justice. 'Dohai ! Boliai F 
 
 'We do not keep justice here,' was the soft 
 answer. ' You must go to the Courts for that. 
 We are but women — ' 
 
 * And I too am a woman ! Listen 1 ' The words 
 which had lagged a moment before now crowded 
 to her lips, and as she stepped closer her raised 
 arm commanded attention. ' You have taken my
 
 216 FEROZA 
 
 husband and left me ; and I will not be left ! You 
 gave him scholarships and prizes, tempting him 
 away ; and when I also ask for learning, you say, 
 " You must sing." What is singing when I am sad ? 
 Surely God will hear my tears and not your songs ! ' 
 
 Her passion swayed her so that but for Julia 
 Smith's supporting arm she would have fallen. 
 ' I don't understand,' said the Englishwoman 
 kindly. ' What have we done ? Who are you ? ' 
 
 ' I am the wife of Meer Ahmed Ali, barrister- 
 at-law, and I want to be taught Euclidus, and- 
 Justinian, and the, — the other things. You shall 
 not take him away for always. Justice ! I say, 
 justice ! ' 
 
 ' My dears ! My dears ! ' cried Julia Smith, 
 ' didn't I tell you it was the finger of Providence — ' 
 
 Half-an-hour afterwards little Feroza, flying 
 back to rejoin her companions, felt as if Paradise 
 had been opened to her by a promise. But if 
 Paradise was ajar, the orange garden was closed, 
 the gate locked, the key gone. She peered through 
 the bars, hoping it was a practical joke to alarm
 
 FEEOZA 217 
 
 her. All was still and silent save for the creak of 
 the well-wheel and a soft rustle from the burnished 
 leaves where the moonlight glistened white. 
 
 ' Kareem ! let me in 1 for pity sake let me in 1 ' 
 
 Then a wild, uncontrollable fear at finding her- 
 self alone in an unknown world claimed her body 
 and soul, and she fled like a hare to the only refuge 
 she knew. The mems must protect her ; for were 
 they not the cause of her venturing forth at all ? 
 But for them, or their like, would she not have 
 been well content at home ? Yea 1 well content. 
 
 The verandah was empty, and from within came 
 a monotonous voice. She peered into the dimly- 
 lit room to see a circle of kneeling figures, and 
 hear her own name welded into the even flow of 
 prayer. God and his Holy Prophet ! They were 
 praying that she might become apostate from the 
 faith of her fathers ! Tales of girls seized and 
 baptized against their will leapt to her memory. 
 She covered her eyes as if to shut out the horrid 
 sight and fled : whither she neither knew nor cared. 
 
 ' Hai ! have I found thee at last, graceless !
 
 218 FEROZA 
 
 scandalous ! ' scolded some one into whose arms 
 she ran at full tilt. 
 
 ' Mytab ! dear Mytab ! ' she cried, clinging 
 frantically to the familiar figure. ' Take me home, 
 oh, please take me home ! I will never go out again, 
 no, never ! ' 
 
 That was the determination of ignorance. 
 Eighteen months after wisdom had altered it and 
 many other things, for during that time Julia 
 Smith had sung hymns on the doorstep three days 
 a week. Sometimes she had quite a large audience, 
 and sometimes Feroza herself would listen at the 
 lattice. On these occasions the thin voice had a 
 ring in it ; for, despite the fact that her pupil was 
 taught all the truths of religion in prose and 
 monotone, poor Julia used to wonder if this relegat- 
 ing of hymns to the doorstep was not a bowing in 
 the house of Eimmon ; nay, worse, a neglect of 
 grace, for she loved her pupil dearly. Not one, 
 but two pair of eyes glistened over the surprise in 
 preparation for the absent husband. Wherefore a 
 surprise no one knew, but surprise it was to hQ.
 
 FEROZA 219 
 
 Feroza said the idea originated in her teacher's 
 sentimental brain ; if so, it took root quickly in 
 the girl's passionate heart. Thus, beyond the fact 
 of her learning to read and write, the Meer knew 
 nothing of the change wisdom was working in his 
 wife. And meanwhile time brought other changes 
 to the quiet courtyard. Handsome, dissipated 
 Inaiyut died of cholera, and over him, and the 
 boy- baby she lost, Kareema shed tears which did 
 not dim her beauty. Three months after she was 
 once more making the bare walls ring with her 
 inconsequent laughter. She jeered at Feroza's 
 diligence with increased scorn. No man, she said, 
 was worth the losing of looks in books, and if the 
 Meer really spoke of return, a course of cosmetics 
 would be more advisable. 
 
 Even Julia shook her head over Feroza's thin 
 face. ' You work too hard, dear,' she sighed. 
 ' Ah ! if it were the one thing needful ; but I have 
 failed to teach you that.' 
 
 ' Dear Miss ! don't look sad ; think of the 
 difference you have wrought. Oh, do not cry,' she
 
 220 FEROZA 
 
 went on passionately, for the mild blue eyes were 
 filling with tears. ' Come, we will talk of his 
 return, full of noble resolutions of self-sacrifice to 
 find — dear, dear Miss! I am so happy, so 
 dreadfully happy ! ' As she buried her face in 
 the gingham dress her voice sank to a murmur of 
 pure content. But some unkind person had 
 poisoned Julia's peace with remarks of the mixing 
 of unknown chemicals. After all, what did she 
 know of this absent husband, save that dear Mrs. 
 Cranston had met him at a conversazione ? 
 
 * I suppose the Meer is really an enlightened 
 man ? ' she asked dubiously. 
 
 The gingham dress gave up a scared face. 
 ' Dear Miss ! why, he is a barrister-at-law ! ' 
 
 Her teacher coughed. ' But are you sure, dear, 
 that he wanted you to learn ? ' 
 
 ' Not everything ; because he did not think I 
 could ; but he spoke of many things. I have 
 learnt all, — except — ' 
 
 ' Except what ? ' 
 
 Feroza hesitated. ' I was not sure, — Inaiyut
 
 FEROZA 221 
 
 said he would teach it, but he died — 'Tis only 
 a game called whist.' 
 
 'Whist!' 
 
 ' Do I not say it right ? W-h-i-s-t — loist. Oh, 
 Miss ! is it a wicked game ? Is it not fit ? Ought 
 I not to learn it ? ' 
 
 The fire of questions reduced Julia Smith's 
 confusion to simple tears. ' I don't know,' she 
 moaned, ' that is the worst ! I thought it was the 
 finger of Providence, and, — ah, Feroza ! If I have 
 done you harm 1 ' 
 
 ' You have done me no harm,' said Feroza, with 
 a kind smile. ' You have harmed yourself with 
 cinnamon tea and greasy fritters in the other 
 zenanas, and you shall have some, English fashion, 
 to take away your headache.' 
 
 So grumbling Mytab brought an afternoon tea- 
 tray duly supplied with a plate of thin bread-and- 
 butter from within, and Feroza's small brown face 
 beamed over Julia Smith's surprise. 'He will 
 think himself back amongst the menis! Won't 
 he ? ' she asked with a happy laugh.
 
 222 FEROZA 
 
 WduIcI he ? As she jolted home in her 
 palanquin Julia's head whirled. Old and new ! 
 Ignorance and wisdom ! Here was a jumble. A 
 stronger brain than hers might well have felt con- 
 fusion. For it was sunset in that heathen town, 
 and from the housetops, in the courtyards, in the 
 very streets, men paused to lay aside their 
 trivial selves and worship an ideal. Not one 
 of the crowd giving place to the mission -lady, 
 but had in some way or another, if only by a 
 perfunctory performance of some rite, testified 
 that day to the fact that religion formed a part 
 of his daily round, his common task. And on 
 the other side of the world, whence the missions 
 come ? — 
 
 Meanwhile Kareema bewailing the useless cards, 
 found herself backed up by old Mytaben. Such 
 knowledge, the old woman said, would have been 
 more useful than learning to be cleaner than God 
 made you. 'Twas easy to sneer at henna-dyed 
 hands ; but was that worse than using scented 
 soaps like a bad one, and living luxurious ? Sheets
 
 FEROZA 223 
 
 and towels forsooth 1 Why, Shah-jehan himself 
 never dreamed of such expenses. 
 
 ' I like them, for all that,' cried Kareema gaily ; 
 ' and I think the mcms are wise to have big looking- 
 glasses. It is hateful only seeing a little bit of 
 one's self at a time. And Feroza and I are going 
 out to be admired like the mems, aren't we, Feroza?' 
 
 ' If the Meer wishes it,' replied her sister-in- 
 law gravely. 
 
 Mytab looked from one to the other, ' Have a 
 care, players with fire ! ' she said shrilly. ' Have 
 a care ! Is the world changed because it reads 
 books and washes ? Lo ! the customs of the 
 fathers bind the children.' 
 
 ' Mytab hath been mysterious of late,' remarked 
 Kareema, giving a queer look, as the old lady 
 moved away in wrath. ' All me ! if I had but my 
 handsome Inaiyut dicing in the vestibule 'twould 
 be better for all of us, maybe.' 
 
 Feroza laid her soft hand gently on the other's 
 shoulder. ' I am so sorry for thee, dear ! but we 
 will love thee always and be a sister and brother — '
 
 224 FEROZA 
 
 Kareema's look was queerer than ever, and she 
 laughed hysterically. 
 
 The day came at last when Feroza sat in the 
 sunlit courtyard holding another unopened letter 
 in her hand, knowing that ere a week was over 
 the writer would be prisoned in her kind arms, 
 surrounded by friendly faces, caught in the meshes 
 of familiar custom. She was not afraid, even 
 though his letters gave her small clue to the man 
 himself. Her own convictions were strong enough 
 to supply him with opinions also, and even if she 
 did not come up to his ideal at first, she felt that 
 the sweet satisfaction of a return to home and 
 kindred would count for, and not against her. 
 So she sat idly delaying to read, and dreaming 
 over the past, much as she had dreamt over the 
 future nearly tw^o years before. Only she sat on 
 a chair now, and her white stockings and patent- 
 leather shoes twisted themselves tortuously about 
 its legs. She thought mostly of the childish time 
 when she, their cousin, had played with Ahmed 
 Ali and Inaiyut ; it seemed somehow nearer than
 
 FEROZA 225 
 
 those other days, when the studious lad's departure 
 for college had been prefaced by that strange 
 unreal marriage. 
 
 And Kareema watched her furtively from the 
 far corner where she and Mytab were making 
 preserves. 
 
 Suddenly a loud call, fiercely imperative, made 
 them come sheepishly forward to where Feroza 
 stood at bay, one hand at her throat, the other 
 crushing her husband's letter. ' What is this ? 
 What have you all been keeping from me ? What 
 does he mean ? — this talk of duty and custom. 
 Ah-h-h— !' 
 
 Her voice, steady till then, broke into a ringing 
 
 cry as a trivial detail in Kareema's reluctant 
 
 figure caught her eye. The palms and nails of 
 
 those delicate hands were no longer stained with 
 
 henna. They were as her own, as nature made 
 
 t 
 them, as the Meer sahib said he liked them ! She 
 
 seized both wTists fiercely, turning the accusing 
 
 palms to heaven, while a tempest of sheer animal 
 
 jealousy beat the wretched girl down from each 
 
 VOL. I Q
 
 226 FEROZA 
 
 new-won foothold, down, down, to the mherited 
 nature underneath. 
 
 ' Then it is true,' she gasped. ' I see ! I know ! 
 Holy Prophet ! what infamy to talk of duty. He 
 is to marry, — and I who have slaved — He is mine, 
 mine, I say ! Thou shalt not have him ! ' 
 
 Mytab's chill old hand fell on the girl's straining 
 arm like the touch of Death. 'Allah akhbdr tua 
 Mohammed rasul ! ^ Hast forgotten the faith, 
 Feroza Begum, Moguli { Thine ? Since when 
 has the wife a right to claim all ? Since when 
 hast thou become a memV 
 
 The girl glared at her with wild passion, and 
 Kareema gave a whimper as the grip bit into her 
 tender wrists. ' Don't ; you hurt me ! ' 
 
 Feroza flung them from her in contemptuous 
 loathing. ' Fool ! coward ! as if he would touch 
 you. I will tell him all. He will know — Ah 
 God ! my head ! my head ! — ' She was in the dust 
 at their feet stunned by her own passion. 
 
 ^ ' God Almighty and his prophet Mohammed ' ; a brief con- 
 fession of faith.
 
 FEROZA 227 
 
 ' I warned the Moulvie to break it by degrees/ 
 grumbled Mytab, dragging the girl to some 
 matting ; ' but he said 'twould make no more to 
 her than to the Meer. Books don't seem to change 
 a man, but women are different.' 
 
 ' It's not my fault/ whimpered Kareema. ' I 
 don't want to marry the Meer; he was ever a 
 noodle. Prating of its being a duty, forsooth ! ' 
 
 ' So it is ! a bounden duty. Never hath child- 
 less widow had to leave this house, and never 
 shall, till God makes us pigs of unbelievers.' 
 
 ' I wish my handsome Inaiyut had lived for all 
 that,' muttered the girl, as Feroza showed signs of 
 recovery. She resisted all attempts at explanation 
 or comfort, however, and made her way alone, a 
 solitary resolute figure, to her windowless room, 
 where, when she shut the door, all was dark. 
 There she lay tearless while the others, sitting in 
 the sunlight, talked in whispers as if the dead 
 were within. 
 
 ' The Moulvie must bid her repeat the creed,' 
 was old My tab's ultimatum. ' God send the Miss
 
 228 FEROZA 
 
 has not made a Christian of her, with all those 
 soapings and washings ! ' She had no spark of 
 pity. Such was woman's lot, and to rebel was 
 sacrilege. 
 
 'Don't make sure of my consent,' pouted 
 Kareema, her pretty face swollen with easy tears. 
 ' If he is really the noodle Feroza deems, I'd rather 
 be a religious. 'Twould be just as amusing.' 
 
 Mytab laughed derisively. ' Thou a religious ! 
 The gossips would have tired tongues. Besides, 
 choice is over. Had the child lived, perhaps ; but 
 now the Moulvie hath a right to see Inaiyut's 
 children on his knee.' 
 
 The sunshine had given place to shadow before 
 Feroza appeared. 
 
 ' Bring me a hurka ; ^ I am going to see the 
 Miss. Follow if thou wilt,' she said ; and though 
 her voice had lost its ring, the tone warned Mytab 
 to raise no objection. Ere she left the sheltering 
 walls she stood a moment before her sister-in-law, 
 all the character, and grief, and passion blotted 
 
 ^ The veil worn by secluded women.
 
 FEROZA 229 
 
 out by the formless white domino she wore. ' I 
 could kill you" for being pretty,' she said, in a hard 
 whisper as she turned away. 
 
 She had never been to the mission-house since 
 that eventful nig^ht, and the sic^ht of its familiar 
 unfamiliarity renewed the sense of injury with 
 which she had last seen it. Miss ' Eshsmitt sahib,' 
 they told her, was ill : but she would take no 
 denial, and so, for the first time in her life, Feroza 
 entered an English lady's bedroom. Simple, almost 
 poor as this one was in its appointments, the sight 
 sent a throb of fear to the girl's heart. What ! 
 Was not Kareema's beauty odds enough, that she 
 must fight also against this undreamed-of comfort ? 
 She flung up her arms with the old cry, ' Dohai ! 
 Dohai I ' The fever-flushed face on the frilled 
 pillows turned fearfully. ' What is it, Feroza ? 
 Oh ! what is it ? ' 
 
 The question was hard to solve even in the 
 calm sessions of thought, well-nigh impossible 
 here. Wliy had she been lured from the old life 
 in some ways and not in all ? Was their boasted
 
 230 FEROZA 
 
 influence all words ? Then why had they 
 prated of higher things ? Why had they lied to 
 her ? 
 
 Poor Julia buried her face in a pocket-hand- 
 kerchief drenched in eau-de-Cologne, and sobbed, 
 ' Ah, take her away ! Please take her away ! ' 
 
 So they led her gently to the text-hung drawing- 
 room with a cottage piano in one corner, and shook 
 their heads over her passionate appeals. They 
 could do nothing, they said, — nothing at all, — 
 unless she cast in her lot with them absolutely ; 
 so she turned and left them with a sombre fire in 
 her eyes. 
 
 She never knew how the days passed until, as 
 she watched the sunlight creep up the eastern wall 
 of the court, it came home to her that on the next 
 evening Meer Ahmed Ali w^ould watch it also. 
 She seemed not to have thought, and it was 
 Kareema, and not she, who had shed tears. On 
 that last night the latter came to where her 
 cousin lay still, but sleepless. ' Why wilt be so 
 foolish, Feroza ? ' she said petulantly. ' Nothing
 
 FEROZA 231 
 
 is settled. If he is a noodle, I will none of him, 
 I tell thee. If not, thou art too much of one 
 thyself to care. God knows he may not look at 
 either, through beino; enamoured of the mems. 
 And oh, Feroza,' she added, her sympathy over- 
 borne by curiosity, ' think you he will wear the 
 strange dress of the Miss sahib's sun-pictures ? If 
 so I shall laugh of a surety.' 
 
 A gleam of consolation shot through poor 
 Feroza's brain. Men disliked ridicule. ' Of 
 course the Meer dresses Europe - fashion,' she 
 replied stiffly. ' Thou seemest to forget that my 
 husband is a man of culture.' 
 
 A man of culture ! undoubtedly, if by culture 
 we mean dutiful self - improvement. That had 
 been Meer Ahmed All's occupation for years, and 
 his gentle, high-bred face bore unmistakably the 
 look of one stowing away knowledge for future 
 use. He was really an excellent young man; 
 and, during his three years at a boarding-house in 
 Netting Hill, had behaved himself as few young 
 men do when first turned loose in London. He
 
 232 FEROZA 
 
 spoke English perfectly, and it would be difficult 
 to say what he had not learnt that could be learnt 
 by an adaptive nature in the space of thirty-six 
 calendar months spent in diligent polishing of the 
 surface of things. He learnt, for instance, that 
 people looking at his handsome, intelligent face, 
 said it made them sad to think of his being married 
 as a boy to a girl he did not love. Thence the 
 idea that he was a martyr took root and flourished, 
 and he acquiesced proudly in his own sacrifice on 
 the altar of progress. For him the love of the 
 poets was not, and even in his desire for Feroza's 
 education he told himself that he was more 
 actuated by a sense of duty than by any hope 
 of greater happiness for himself The natural 
 suggestion that he should marry his brother's 
 widow he looked on merely as a further develop- 
 ment of previous bondage; and he told himself 
 again that, not having swerved a hair's-breadth 
 from his faith, he was bound to set his own views 
 aside in favour of a custom desired by those chiefiy 
 concerned. Besides, in the atmosphere of surprised
 
 FEKOZA 233 
 
 sympathy in which he lived it was hard, indeed, 
 not to pose as a victim. 
 
 And so, just as poor Feroza was confidently 
 asserting his culture, he, having given his English 
 fellow-passengers the slip, was once more putting 
 on the clothes of an orthodox Mohammedan. 
 Feroza, on the other hand, had adopted the dress 
 of the advanced Indian lady, which, with surpris- 
 ingly little change, manages to destroy all the 
 grace of the original costume. The lack of braided 
 hair and clustering jewels degrades the veil 
 to an unnecessary wrap ; the propriety of the 
 bodice intensifies its shapelessness : the very face 
 suffers by the unconcealed holes in ears and 
 nose. 
 
 Kareema stared with a smile akin to tears. 
 * There is time,' she pleaded. ' Come ! I can make 
 you look twice as well.' 
 
 Their eyes met with something of the old 
 affection, but Feroza shook her head. ' I must 
 find out — ' 
 
 ' If he is a noodle ? ' The interrupting giggle
 
 234 FEROZA 
 
 was almost a whimper. 'You mean if he is 
 blind ! Ah, Feroza ! look at me.' 
 
 No need to say that; the puzzled eyes had 
 taken in the sight already. Gleams of jewelled 
 hair under the gold - threaded veil ; a figure 
 revealed by the net bodice worn over a scantier 
 one of flowered muslin : bare feet tucked away 
 in shells of shoes ; long gauze draperies showing 
 a shadow of silk-clad limbs ; above it all that 
 dimpling, smiling face. She shook her head 
 again. 
 
 In the louCT minutes of waitinsj she lost herself 
 in counting the bricks on the familiar wall until 
 the si2[ht of a tall man at the door dressed as a 
 Mohammedan startled her into drawing the veil 
 to her face in fear of intrusion. 
 
 As the man withdrew quickly Kareema's laugh 
 rang out. ' To think, Feroza ! thou shouldest be 
 ^purdah to him after all thy big talk.' 
 
 'The Meer! Was that the Meer?' faltered 
 Feroza. 'I- did not, — the dress — ' 
 
 ' Bah ! I knew the likeness to my poor
 
 FEROZA 235 
 
 Inaiynt. See ! yonder he comes again ushered 
 by father-in-law. Xow, quick, Feroza ! ' 
 
 The voice quavering over the prepared phrases 
 of thanks to the Great Giver of home-coming was 
 infinitely pathetic ; and yet, as Ahmed Ali took 
 the outstretched hand, he was conscious above 
 all things of a regret, almost a sense of out- 
 rage; for the bondage of custom was upon him 
 already. Kareema, catching his look, came for- 
 ward with ready tact. 'We welcome my lord,' 
 she said in the rounded tone of ceremony, 'as 
 one who, having travelled far, returns to those 
 who have naught worthy his acceptance save 
 the memory of kinship. My sister and I greet 
 you, €18 sisters. Nay, more,' she added lightly; 
 ' I too shake hands English-fashion, and if I do 
 it wrong forgive us both, since learned Feroza is 
 teacher.' 
 
 ' You make me very happy,' answered the Meer 
 heartily. ' How well you are all looking ! ' 
 
 No need to say where his eyes were. 
 
 ' You mistake, Meer sahib! cried Kareema
 
 236 FEROZA 
 
 swiftly, ' Feroza looks ill. 'Tis your blame, since 
 she worked over-hard to please you.' 
 
 The forbidden frown came too late to prevent 
 Ahmed All's glance finding it on his wife's face. 
 It was not becoming. ' Was it so hard to learn ? ' 
 he asked with a patronising smile. ' But your 
 handwriting improved immensely of late.' 
 
 The tips of Feroza's fingers showed bloodless 
 under their nervous clasp, but she said nothing. 
 Indeed, she scarcely opened her lips as they sat 
 talking over the morning meal. Even when the 
 Meer refused tea and toast in favour of chupatties 
 and Jcoftas ^ it was Kareema who supplied surprise. 
 Feroza was all eyes and ears, and not till the sun 
 tipping over the high walls glared down on them 
 did she lose patience enough to ask, vaguely, what 
 he thought about it all. 
 
 ' Wah illah,' cried the Moulvie, 'Feroza hits 
 the mark ! What thinkest thou, my son ? But 
 I fear not, for thou hast the faithful air, and canst 
 doubtless repeat thy creed purely.' 
 
 ^ Unleavened cakes and mince-meat balls.
 
 FEROZA 237 
 
 The young man looked round the familiar scene, 
 every detail of which fitted so closely to memory 
 that no room remained for the seven years' absence. 
 A rush of glad recognition surged to heart and 
 brain, making him stand up and give the Kalma} 
 
 ' I am content, my father ! ' he cried in 
 ringing tones, as the sonorous echoes died away 
 to silence. ' I am content to come back to the old 
 life, to the old duties.' 
 
 'The sun makes my head ache,' said Feroza, 
 rising abruptly ; ' I will go into the dark and rest.' 
 
 ' Don't go, Feroza ! Thou hast not told the 
 Meer about thyself,' pleaded Kareema, rising in 
 her turn. ' She hath worked so hard,' she added 
 petulantly to the young man. ' No one is worth 
 it, no one.' 
 
 The Meer looked from one to the other. ' Learn- 
 ing is hard for women,' he began. Then some- 
 thing in his wife's face roused the new man in 
 him, making him say in a totally different tone 
 and manner, ' I am afraid I hardly understand.' 
 
 1 The Creed.
 
 238 FEROZA 
 
 ' That is what Kareema says of me/ replied 
 Feroza icily. 
 
 Her cousin, as she sat down once more to listen, 
 shrugged her shoulders. * And she counted her- 
 self as something better than a woman,' was her 
 inward comment amid her smiles. 
 
 Feroza saw nothing of her husband for the rest 
 of the day. The men's court was crowded with 
 visitors, and she herself had to bear the brunt of 
 many feminine congratufations. Only at sunset, 
 before starting to attend a feast given in his 
 honour, he found time for live minutes' speech 
 with her ; but, almost to her relief, he was far too 
 content, far too excited by his own pleasure to be 
 able to distinguish any other feeling in her mind. 
 Yet a momentary hesitation on his part as he was 
 leaving made her heart bound, and a distinct pause 
 brought her to his side with wistful eyes, only to 
 see Kareema nodding and smiling to him from the 
 roof, whither she had gone for fresher air. ' What 
 is it ? ' he asked kindly, though his looks were 
 elsewJiere.
 
 FEKOZA 239 
 
 'Nothing,' she answered, 'nothing at all. Go 
 in peace ! ' 
 
 The moon, rising ere the sun set, stole the twi- 
 light. So she sat gazing at the hard square out- 
 lines of the walls till far on into the night, her 
 mind filled with but one thought. The thought 
 that by and by Ahmed Ali, flushed with content 
 at things which she had taught herself for his sake 
 to despise, would come home to her — to his wife. 
 The little room she had travestied into a pitiful 
 caricature of foreign fashions seemed to mock her 
 foolish hopes, so she crept away to the lattice 
 whence she had had her first glimpse of wisdom. 
 Even on that iDiilliant night the vestibule itself 
 was dark ; but through the door she could see the 
 empty arcades of the men's court surrounding the 
 well where she and her cousins used to play. 
 
 A rustle in the alley made her peer through 
 the fret-work, for the veriest trifle swayed her ; 
 but it was only a dog seeking garbage in the gutter. 
 Then a door creaked and she started, wondering 
 if Ahmed Ali could be home already. Silence
 
 240 FEROZA 
 
 brought her a dim suspicion that, but for this 
 wisdom of hers, she might have waited his return 
 cahnly enough. Footsteps now ! She cowered to 
 the shadow at the sight of Kareema followed by 
 Mytab bearing something. 
 
 ' He mayn't be back till late,' came the familiar 
 giggle ; ' and a soft pillow will please him.' 
 
 The pair were back again before she recovered 
 her surprise, and Kareema paused ere re-entering 
 the women's door. ' Poor Feroza ! She will get 
 accustomed to it, I suppose.' 
 
 ' Of what hath she to complain ? ' retorted the 
 old voice ; ' he is a properer man than I deemed. 
 Say, heart's desire, what said he when I saw 
 thee—?' 
 
 ' Mytab ! thou mean spy ! Bah ! he told me 
 he would change a letter and call me Carina, since 
 it meant dearest in some heathen tongue. They 
 begin thus over the black water likely: 'tis not 
 bad, and new at any rate.' 
 
 Feroza scarcely waited for distance to deaden 
 the answering giggle. She was on her feet, pacing
 
 FEROZA 241 
 
 to and fro like a mad creature. Ah ! to get away 
 from it all — from that name, from the look he 
 must have given — to get something cold and still 
 to quench the raging fire in her veins ! Suddenly, 
 without a waver, she walked to the well and leant 
 over its low parapet. Her hands sought the cool 
 damp stones, her eyes rested themselves on the 
 faint glimmer far down — ever, oh, ever so far away! 
 Hark ! some one in the alley. If it were he ? Ah 1 
 then she must go away, ever so far away — 
 
 Meer Ahmed Ali found his pillow comfortable, 
 and only woke in the dawn to see Mytab standing 
 beside him. 
 
 ' Feroza ! ' she cried. ' Wliere is Feroza ? ' 
 
 A dull remorse came to his drowsy brain. ' It 
 was so late — I — ' 
 
 ' Holy Prophet, she is not here ! Thou hast 
 not seen her 1 Then she hath gone to the Missen 
 to be baptized. Why didst turn her brain with 
 books ? Fool ! Idiot ! ' 
 
 ' The Mission 1 ' Meer Ahmed Ali was aw^ake 
 
 VOL. I R
 
 242 FEROZA 
 
 now, and the peaceful party, gathered in the ver- 
 andah for early tea, stared as the young man burst 
 in on it with imperious demands for his wife. 
 Then his surroundings recalled his acquired cour- 
 tesy, and he stammered an apologetic explanation. 
 
 ' She has gone away ? ' cried Julia, with a queer 
 catch in her breath. ' Oh, Meer sahib ! what a 
 mistake we have all made. It was too late to 
 write, and then I got ill ; but, indeed ! I was going 
 down this very morning to try and make you 
 understand.' 
 
 ' Understand what ?' asked the Meer, helplessly 
 confused, adding hurriedly, ' but I can't stay now. 
 She must be found. I will not have her run away. 
 I will have her back — yes ! I ivill have her back.' 
 
 Half-an-hour later Julia Smith, driven to the 
 Moulvie's house by remorseful anxiety, found the 
 wicket -gate ajar. She entered silently upon a 
 scene framed like a picture by the dark doorway 
 of the men's court. 
 
 Feroza had come back to those familiar walls. 
 She lay beside the well, and the water from her
 
 FEEOZA 243 
 
 clinging garments crept in dark stains through the 
 dust. She had wrapped her veil round her to 
 stifle useless cries, and so the dead face, as in 
 life, was decently hidden from the eyes of men. 
 She lay alone under the cloudless sky, for her 
 friends, shrinking from the defilement of death, 
 stood apart : Kareema sobbing on Mytab's breast, 
 with Ahmed Ali, dazed yet indignant, holding her 
 hand ; the Moulvie, repeating a prayer ; the ser- 
 vants still breathless from their ghastly toil. Julia 
 Smith saw it all with her bodily eyes ; yet nothing 
 seemed worth seeing save that veiled figure in the 
 dust. She knelt beside it and took the slender 
 cold hand in hers. 'My dear, my dear!' she 
 whispered through her sobs. 'Surely you need 
 not have gone so far, so very far — for help.' 
 
 But the dead face was hidden even from her 
 tears. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 /
 
 Piil 
 
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