That day Girunda and Gyannia walked five miles, resting in a nullah,
under tufts of high grass, in the heat of the sun from nine till
six--during which time the fierce hot winds roared over the land, and
swept the roasted leaves up and down the roads, and shook the branches
of the cork trees. How hot it was--every living thing seemed to have
secured some shelter, save these forlorn children. The air was like
a blast from a furnace, the very stones were scorching to the touch,
and in the shallows, where a great river had rushed in the rains,
there were now but a few shrunken pools in a stony bed; in these pools
wallowed blue buffaloes (their hideous noses scarcely above water),
enjoying a sort of tepid relief.
That night the travellers halted in a village; a gwali’s (cowherd’s)
wife was surprised to see an exhausted-looking boy carrying on his
back a little girl, the little girl in her turn carrying a cat. She
invited them in, and gave them milk, and asked from whence they came.
“Paroor,” replied Girunda.
“Paroor? Lo! it is six koss away. Do thy people know?” She eyed him
with suspicion.
“Yea; our uncle hath turned us out to beg.”
“And where art thou going?”
“To Shahjhanpur, where our father dwells.”
“Shahjhanpur!” with a scream; “why, it is nigh thirty koss, and thou
canst not walk there.”
“There is no other means.”
“Hast thou any money?”
Girunda untied a rag, and proudly displayed his precious four-anna bit.
He had never possessed such a sum in his life.
“It may maintain thee for two or three days,” said the woman dubiously.
“What work is thy father doing in Shahjhanpur?”
“Some one said he was making matting,” rejoined the boy, simply. “He is
in jail.”
“In jail! Oh, ye fathers!”
“Yea; he went three months ago.”
“And what hath he done?--murder--robbery?”
“He hath done naught. They just took him.”
“But surely he must have robbed or plundered?”
“Nay; he was always very poor. He had nothing to leave us but a sickle
and this cat; but old Turroo Sing had all his money stolen.”
“I see. And now it is buried somewhere,” she added significantly. “How
long will thy father be in jail?”
“Two years.”
“A great time! Well, thou art weary, and must need rest. Lie here on
this mat, and to-morrow I will give thee food to take thee on for a
day or two--money I have none--and God will do the rest.”
The next morning the children fared well. That good Samaritan, the
gwali’s wife, secured them seats in a passing bullock-hackery, and thus
they accomplished a considerable distance.
The following day they met no friends, and the heat was frightful--the
air like a flame. Nevertheless, Girunda tottered doggedly forward, with
his sister on his back, for five miles, with long, long rests; and at
sunset they were nearing a large native town--at any rate, it seemed
large to them. They were sent to the serai--a resting-place for native
wayfarers. There was a great entrance gate leading into a wide enclosed
space, with plenty of accommodation for camels, ekkas, and horses,
and little niches, or rooms, all around, for the travellers. This
was indeed a new life to Girunda--his sister was asleep. He went and
watched the hairy Punjaubi dealers watering and feeding their ponies;
the bearded camel-men giving fodder to their screaming, bubbling,
discontented animals; the “purda nashins,” women, hidden behind a
kind of screen in a corner, from whence came much shrill laughing and
chattering. Tired as he was, he was still more curious, and crept
forward and tried to peep, but was rewarded with a stinging blow and
a volume of abuse from a hideous old hag. “They were all ugly,” so he
assured a hawker, who laughed at his discomfiture.
This serai, with its crowds of travellers, and groups of animals, and
imposing entrance, was truly a most novel and wonderful scene to this
ignorant village lad.
A woman, woman-like, once more took pity on the party--the queer little
group of a boy and a girl and a cat, with no one belonging to them, and
not even possessing a bundle of clothes. In reply to their petition, “O
mother, will you help us?” she gave them a ride on her jingling ekka
for about eight miles. Girunda and Gyannia had never been in (to them)
such a splendid equipage before, and were extremely happy as the wiry
chesnut animal between the shafts, who tasted naught but bad grass
or roadside nibblings, kept up a steady canter mile after mile. But,
alas! the ekka’s owner was going in a different direction from theirs,
and at a certain bridge she set them down, and took leave of them,
turning away into a “cutcha” track.
They were now in a different country, where the road ran quite straight
between lines of neem trees, and was bounded with burnt-up, rusty
grass. The landscape was desolate; there were no villages peeping out
of the clumps of trees, no houses by the roadside: but these are always
rare in India.
They halted at sundown, and crept under the arches of a bridge over a
dry watercourse, and ate raw rice and drank water. It was plain that
they must pass the night where they were, and as they were very tired,
they were not long in falling asleep. Gyannia, infant-like, slept
soundly till dawn, but not so her brother. At midnight he was awoke by
a cold, damp nose being poked into his face; he started up trembling,
and a few minutes later he heard his visitor’s melancholy cry--it was
only a prowling jackal. As he sat and stared into the grey light,
his sharpened ears heard another sound that made his heart beat very
fast--the “haunk--haunk” of a hyena. The cat, too, sat up and listened.
If it came their way, he had no weapon; and stories of children
devoured by hyenas were a common topic among the crones of Paroor
village. He had several times seen a hyena skulking round, when he was
driving home the cow--a hideous, high-shouldered, shuffling brute; but
then his father had been near, and he was not afraid. Now, alas! his
father was miles away, and he was almost sick with terror. The cry came
nearer and nearer--oh, fearfully near--now it was directly overhead!
What intense relief! the brute was on the high-road right above them;
yes, and the “haunk--haunk” was dying gradually away in the distance;
but Girunda slept no more that night. Supposing it should come back?
The cat, too, appeared to have anxieties; she did not curl up, but sat
bolt erect beside him. She was a queer animal, attached to people and
not to a place, though the first day she had followed them in a devious
and uncertain manner, uttering low mews of expostulation, and even
sitting down in the middle of the road, and thus remonstrating from
afar, till they were almost out of sight, but subsequently joining them
like a whirlwind, with a long white tail. Lately she had been carried,
and had had “lifts” in the bullock-cart and ekka; so the cat was much
the freshest of the party, and seemed to have become reconciled to the
journey, though she evidently did not approve of sleeping out at night
in the neighbourhood of hyenas.
It was the end of June, just before the rains broke; the sky was
like molten brass, the earth like stone. Who would travel in such a
time?--who but two homeless unfortunates, who must press forward or
else lie down and perish! Girunda staggered along, carrying his sister,
at the rate of three koss a day. The four annas were long exhausted,
and they now openly begged their bread! Some gave them a few handsful
of rice,--which they ate raw--some a few cowries, which they spent at
the little bunnia shops; they could barely keep body and soul together!
Yes, they were like the mendicants that had come to their own door in
the good times Girunda remembered, when his mother was alive--and the
cow.
His mother--he could recollect her well. She had pretty white teeth,
and she laughed often; but one day she came back from the fields
between two women. She was weeping, and so were they, and they sent him
across the river to play; and when he returned, a boy in the village
ran shouting to meet him, and cried, “Thy mother is dead; a snake bit
her.”
Sometimes Girunda thought he would die too; he was so hot, and so
tired, and his feet were so sore. If only he could reach his father
first! But how long the miles had become! How he strained his eyes to
catch sight of the next milestone! and what an enormous time it seemed
before it came into view! The road never varied--never turned to the
right hand or the left; sometimes, as he toiled on, his poor tired
brain imagined that it had taken the form of a great grey serpent,
and was coming towards him to swallow him up. They were now within
five miles of Shahjhanpur city--would he ever reach it? There were
fine trees lining the route; there were plenty of ekkas and ponies;
there was a loud-puffing fire-devil going yonder over a bridge (he
had heard of it), with a lot of black boxes behind it; and still he
was three miles from Shahjhanpur--now two. Oh, he could never arrive
there--never!