The syce pointed to the patches of tiny black ants which he had found
along the veranda and across the grass, as Gobur expected.
"Sahib," he asked suggestively, "is it from the wolf or from the child?"
"From the child," answered the major, examining the rhododendron bushes,
where the crushed flowers and broken stalks were thickly covered by the
busy insects.
Both believed they had found the fatal spot to which the wolf had
retreated.
Oliver had gone up to the fountain on the lawn, and was deluging his
bandaged arm.
"Go indoors, my boy, and rest," said the major, as he passed him, "or
you will suffer for it with that arm."
Oliver walked slowly on towards the veranda, examining for himself the
little black patches that marked the trail of the wolf. He traced its
course from the rhododendron to the window of the bathroom, then he
discovered a second trail leading from the veranda to the pool.
He pointed it out to the gardener, who was returning.
"Wasn't old Gobur right after all?"
The punkah coolie joined them. He was certain he must have heard the
snap of the wolf's teeth if he were behind that bush. For a wolf, they
both asserted, bites with a snap, and clashes its teeth with as much
noise as a steel trap. No; it had carried off the child alive to its
lair.
Oliver bounded up the steps of the veranda, and ran into the hall.
Kathleen was flitting restlessly from room to room.
"Be comforted, dear!" he exclaimed; "your brother is not killed. We may
find him yet, alive in the jungle."
*CHAPTER IV.*
_*THE WOLF'S LAIR.*_
Yes, it was all true! That grim gray wolf was not seeking an early
breakfast for herself, but a safe plaything for the five young wolflings
which she loved so dearly. She cared but little for the scratch on her
shoulder when she thought of their delight.
She snatched up Carl so stealthily, and with so soft a touch, he never
wakened until he felt the cool breeze that arose with the peep of day,
fanning his hot cheeks as the wolf ran swiftly on. It was too dark for
him to see where he was, or he might have been frightened into fits. He
put up his two little chubby hands and felt the wolf's shaggy coat. He
thought it was Sailor, and threw his arm lovingly round the big throat.
He was far too sleepy to take much notice.
The wolf gave him a gentle swing, as she still ran at her fastest
pace,--aware, by the way in which she looked over her shoulder, that the
pursuers were already on her track. She could hear the baying of the
dogs, and darting down the river-bank, hid herself in a natural hollow
formed by the dripping of a little spring. She laid Carl down where the
cool drops trickled on his head, and he was soon asleep again, sounder
than before.
The wolf knew well what she was about. In that quiet water-cradle, with
long trailing creepers for fly-curtains, and the softest of mosses for a
bed, the child never roused to utter a sound.
Many a native mother tries the same plan, and puts her little black baby
to sleep in a shallow watercourse when the heat and the insects become
intolerable, and so secures a few hours' refreshing sleep for it on the
most sultry days.
The dogs lost the scent when the wolf stepped into the water, and
scoured the plain beyond her retreat. Then the wary creature took up her
prize once more, and doubling cleverly upon her pursuers, made her way
to the hills, where her mate was keeping watch over the precious
wolflings. A run of five miles through the morning air was an
invigorating experience after his fretful, feverish night, and Carl
waked up at last, with a stretch and a laugh, quite unconscious of his
perilous position.
They had entered one of the basins scooped in the side of the hills,
where the wild beasts made their retreat. The gorge was narrow at the
entrance, and partly filled up by dislodged stones and fallen rocks, now
overgrown with tangle and jungle, and overshadowed by spreading trees.
These places are called _koonds_ in India; and in the rainy season are
well watered by a mountain torrent, dashing and foaming from the heights
above. Beneath those precipitous rocks, and through the dense foliage
which clothed them, the hottest rays of the midday sun could scarcely
penetrate. Now, at that early hour, it was so dark Carl could
distinguish nothing but a dog-like form. He was still dreaming of his
faithful Sailor, and began to struggle and kick to be set on his feet.
His hands had dabbled in the wolf's blood, and he rubbed his half-open
eyes, wondering more and more why his ayah did not come and make Sailor
leave go of him.
The rapid exercise had made the wolf's torn shoulder burst out bleeding
again, and as they forced their way through a perfect sea of grass and
fern and flowers, under bush and over brake, he became smeared all over.
This was his safeguard. Wolves live for the night, and trust to their
own keen scent to recognize each other, in the blackness of darkness
which envelopes them, as they penetrate deeper and deeper into the
innermost recesses of the koond.
It is a well-known fact that when a pack of wolves are out hunting, if
one of their number gets into a fight, and becomes smeared with the
blood of their prey, the rest of the pack mistake it for the object of
their chase, and tear it to pieces instead.
We think only of the savage ferocity of the wolf when it is seeking its
prey, but it has a warm and loving heart beneath its shaggy coat. The
nobility of the dog is in it; and to each other they are as faithful,
affectionate, and obedient, and even more intelligent.
The gray wolf stopped at last before a luxuriant korinda bush. The
thick-leaved branches arched over until they touched the ground, forming
a leafy tent so thick and dark and cool no rain could filter through,
and the brightest sunshine could scarcely dart more than a flickering
glimmer upon the snug nest it sheltered.
Such was the spot the wolves had chosen for their nursery. They had dug
a hole and lined it with the softest moss they could find, and the
wolf-mother had torn off the hair from her own coat to improve her
babies' bed.
Five little heads popped up to welcome mother, as the gray wolf, with
Carl in her mouth, pushed her way beneath the branches; and the grim,
gaunt wolf-father, who had been guarding them in her absence. got up
with a stretch as she dropped the child into the midst of the pricking
ears and wagging tails. She had brought Carl to her wolflings as a cat
brings a mouse to her kittens, to teach them how to kill and to devour;
but the savage lesson was yet unlearned. They were more ready for play
than for lessons, and found infinite delight in tearing his shirt to
pieces, and freeing him from so strange an encumbrance.
They rolled over and over together as puppies love to do; and when Carl
cried, not knowing what to make of such strange surroundings, the
wolf-father in much perplexity sniffed all over him.
Could that smooth-skinned, hairless little creature be one of his cubs?
How he pricked up his ears every time the small lips puckered, half in
fear, and more than half in anger, because nobody came to fetch Carl!
The deepening sobs ended at last in a roar that made the five strong
wolflings howl in concert.
The shaggy mother stepped into her nest and cuddled her young ones
lovingly in her rough paws. The sixth little head crept closer and
closer until it also found a pillow on that hairy shoulder. Sleeping in
the dark on the dewy moss, Carl dreamed of Sailor in a rougher coat, and
waked to find his dream a reality. But his arms were round his hairy
nurse, and the pouting lips were kissing her rough cheek, as if she
really were his own dear old doggie.
Could he have seen the savage face, he might have been afraid.
Those who live in the land where wild beasts dwell, know that a loving
caress will even induce a tiger to withdraw its teeth; but few, very
few, have the courage and presence of mind to try it. It is just
another proof that love, which is stronger than death, is also stronger
than the savage instincts of wolves and tigers; reminding us of that
millennial day when the wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and none
shall hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain.
Rare as such instances are, they do really happen, and many a story is
told under the banyan trees of Bengal of children who have been brought
up thus in a wild wolf's nest.
From that hour the grim and savage creature looked on Carl Desborough as
her own.
He waked up wide at last, hungry and thirsty. Old Gray Legs, the fierce
wolf-father, cracked a marrow-bone with his formidable teeth as a boy
might crack a nut, and gave it to him to suck. The wild honey trickled
from the rocks above the korinda bush. Ripe mangoes dropped from the
trees around, and lay ready to his baby hand in the drying grass, and
other wild fruits ripened and fell around him as the summer days went
on. It must have worried the wolf-mother that he cared so little for
flesh, which her cubs begin to eat at five weeks. But nothing comes
amiss to a wolf in the shape of food, so she let him help himself to
what he liked best.
The wild birds sang overhead; the frogs croaked in the grass, and
queer-looking lizards basked in the chinks of the rock; crawling snakes
wound their slimy length about unheeded, as they hissed in anger or
basked in some happy spot into which a straggling sunbeam happened to
penetrate. Carl might shriek with terror when he heard the tigers
grunting in the bed of the stream, as the search for water grew more
difficult every day, or the "Ugh! ugh!" of a grizzly bear in search of
the mangoes in which it so delights; but he was really safe, for the
wolves never leave their young alone. If one parent takes a stroll, the
other remains to watch over them, and at the sound of their cry the
whole pack would rally to their defence.
Carl was so much weaker and so much more helpless than their other
wolflings, that Old Gray Legs and his mate kept him close beside them
when he ventured outside his mossy hole.
No human foot had ever penetrated this forest fastness, and if some echo
of a hunter's cry did occasionally waken its solitudes, it was scarcely
heeded.
It was as if poor little Carl had been transported to another world,
beyond the reach of all who loved him so dearly. As the weeks went on
he forgot his home, or remembered it only in dreams. Like a baby
Robinson Crusoe,
"He was out of humanity's reach;
Must he finish his journey alone--
Never hear the sweet music of speech,
And start at the sound of his own!"
The young wolflings made him run on all fours; for if they saw him stand
upright, one or other was sure to leap on his back and roll him over.
Besides, it was often much easier to crawl than to walk in that
trackless wild of fallen rocks and marshy swamps, where decaying
tree-trunks barred the path, and unsuspected burrows perforated what
might otherwise have been described as solid ground.
Like all wild beasts, the wolves retreated to their secret bower for a
midday sleep, and took their stroll in the moonlight. So Carl was
almost always in the dark, and his eyes grew so weak he began to blink
like an owl in the sunshine. For sometimes he waked up when his wolfish
companions were all fast asleep, and at such times he was apt to stray
beyond the dense foliage of the korinda. Now and then the fierce blaze
of the noonday sun shot a swift ray across the drying watercourse, where
a fallen tree made a break in the thick masses of leaves that for the
most part shut out sky and sun altogether. He would scramble over the
rough ground, attracted by its brilliancy, and then, half-blinded by the
unaccustomed light, stumble and fall. Many a sad hurt befell him, and
many a time Old Gray Legs fetched him home; many a fight he had with
chattering monkeys and sprightly-spotted fawns--fights which would have
ended badly for Carl but for the vigilance of his foster-parents. But
the scars and scratches, the bites and stings, taught him at last to
find protection and safety by the gray wolf's side, until he became
afraid to lose sight of her, and answered her slightest call as
dutifully as the five strong cubs, who were now his sole playfellows.
He became the old wolf's constant care; for the perils which surrounded
him increased when week after week wore away, and the ever-increasing
heat dried up the last and deepest pool, which had remained to mark the
course of the once dashing torrent. The blackening grasses rustled as
the wolves rushed hither and thither, with their tongues hanging out of
their mouths from thirst; and the young things cried for the water they
could not find.
When the moon rose behind the rocky steeps which shut in the koond with
its precipitous wall, the patriarch of the pack gave tongue, and called
his hairy children to follow him out. The time had come for those five
wolflings to obey the call, and Carl was as unwilling to be left behind
as the gray wolf was to leave him. Out, out he went into the silvery
moonlight, led by the two old wolves into the very midst of the pack,
catching something of the excitement of the hunt as the wolves swept
down the dried-up river-bed with an appalling howl, in pursuit of their
flying prey. To keep up with them was impossible, and when he could
neither run nor crawl, in his terror he scrambled upon his
foster-mother's back and rode.
When that appalling howl rang through the midnight air, every sleeper in
Noak-holly wakened in trembling fear; and yet a bit of white rag
fluttering at the end of a tall bamboo would have made so good a
"scare-wolf" that it would have kept the whole pack at a respectful
distance.
After nights like these, Carl grew vigorous and strong, bounding into
the air, and leaping like the young fawn they were pursuing, and running
on all fours with astonishing swiftness.
Once he was almost left behind, as the whole pack scampered off suddenly
at the unwelcome sound of the hunting-horn of a Rana, or small hill
chieftain.
The child was left staring wistfully at the Hindu train; for, like the
wolves, the Rana had chosen the midnight to come out with his hog-spear
and beat the jungle for his share of the game with which the hills
abounded. But the sight of the turbaned heads and the dusky faces, the
bare black arms poising the long bamboo-handled spears, and the sound of
their unearthly cries, aroused no thought of home in the heart of the
baby hunter. They only terrified him. The boy was growing wild. With
a leap and a yell he bounded into the air, for the Rana's dogs were upon
him.
Out from the towering moonje grass rushed the returning wolves, hemming
him round as they would the weakest of the pack, and fighting off the
hounds.
Carl was down; but Gray Legs stood over him and brought him out of the
fray unhurt, although the Rana's spear stuck in the ground within an
inch of his naked chest.
"There is a boy in the midst of the pack," said the Rana's jogie or
beater, who had thrown the spear--"a child of the fair people"--for so
the Hindus amongst themselves usually call the Europeans.
*CHAPTER V.*
_*NOAK-HOLLY.*_
Alive in the jungle. These words, which had brought such comfort to
little Kathleen in her childish simplicity, were torture to Mr.
Desborough, as he pictured his boy dropped by the wolf in the midst of
the pathless wilds, the dwelling-places of those ravenous beasts, and
not of them alone. He thought of the birds of prey that lodged unheeded
in those stately trees--the brooding vultures, the screaming kites. He
seemed to see the poisonous hissing snakes, the stinging scorpions, and
creeping things innumerable, that infest the trackless undergrowth of
the hill forests.
"Tell me anything but that!" he exclaimed, shuddering. The search was
renewed with an added desperation. By the water's edge, among the broad
crinkly-edged lily leaves which starred the stream and formed fairy
rafts for innumerable water-wagtails, he found a fragment of embroidered
muslin, torn off by cruel teeth from Carly's tiny sleeve. He saw it was
blood-stained. He saw no more, for the fierce sun shot its hottest rays
upon his uncovered head. His hat fell as he stooped to secure it, and he
sank unconscious on the slippery bed of the drying stream.
"Dropped with the heat," said the major, who thought all further search
was vain, and he bade the servants convey their master home.
The house was now hermetically closed, every door and window shut up to
exclude the heat. The well-moistened tatties cooled the hot air as it
passed through them, and kept the darkened rooms just bearable.
It is the custom of most families in India to have two breakfasts: one
quite early; the second, which is called _tiffen_, resembles the French
_dejeuner_, and is ready a little before noon. The early breakfast had
been forgotten by every one in Noak-holly that morning. The black
servants were gliding noiselessly about; and when the major inquired for
his little fairy Kathleen, they confidentially informed him that the
little beebee would not eat.
"Bring her in to tiffen," said the major; and he strolled into the
familiar dining-room, where he found his new acquaintance of the
morning, Miss Bona St. Faine, seated in solitary state. At any other
time, the odd expression of her face would have convulsed him with
laughter. She was new to Indian ways, and was looking very blankly at
an empty table to which she had been solemnly conducted by Mr.
Desborough's butler, Bene Madho. She was feeling very hungry,
understood she was summoned to breakfast, and saw nothing before her but
flowers. Oliver, who had just emerged from the bathroom, appeared at
another door.
"I wish," she said almost petulantly, "you would not leave me in such
awkward fixes in a stranger's house. You might behave a little more
like a gentleman, Oliver. In such circumstances as these no one likes
to give trouble, but I am really getting ill for want of food."
"It is coming," said her brother, as the black servants, who had only
been waiting for the major, made their appearance, handing round course
after course of fish and curry and game.
Down flew a whole troop of impudent young sparrows. Some darted after
the dishes in the servants' hands, and others set to work on the crumbs
by Bona's plate, quite unabashed by the near neighbourhood of her knife
and fork.
Little Kathleen was brought in by her ayah, a coolie following, anxious
to obey to the uttermost the incoherent charges of their prostrate
master--"Take care of my little Kathleen."
The stately Bene Madho brought her plate of stewed fowl and rice, the
usual diet of children in India; but it stood untasted before her. The
major patted her feverish cheek, afraid to allude to her lost brother,
for fear of bringing on another passionate outburst of her childish
sorrow. He sent the ayah away, thinking the child would only copy the
lamentations and cries in which she indulged--a display of grief very
distasteful to the English officer. His young companions sat silent and
constrained, watching Kathleen.
"She will fret herself into a fever before night," said the major.
"Weeping becomes dangerous with the thermometer at 110 deg.. I must
intrust her to you, my dear young lady. Try and comfort her."
But from all Bona's endeavours Kathleen shrank. She did not want the
strangers; she wanted her own mamma; she longed only to creep into some
quiet corner and cry unseen. This was just what the major was charging
Bona to prevent. The shy child fixed her large pleading eyes on the old
soldier's face, and the white lips moved, but there was no word that any
of them could understand.
They had fetched her away from her ayah, feeling as if the nurse must be
in some way to blame for the catastrophe of the night, and was no longer
to be trusted.
"She ought never to have the care of these children again," said Bona
energetically. "Stranger as I am, I will remain with the little girl,
if Mrs. Desborough wishes me. I will, indeed, if they are going to send
the woman away."
"What a Job's comforter you are!" muttered Oliver, as the spoon fell
from Kathleen's fingers in dismay.
"It was not my ayah let in the wolf; it was me," Kathleen sobbed. "Let
me go and tell mamma all about it."
"Tell me," suggested the major, drawing her between his knees.
"O my dear!" exclaimed Bona, horrified. "Surely you never did. How
could you be so naughty?"
Oliver got up and stood by the major, that he might not lose a single
word of the faltering confession.
"I never can be happy until Carly's found--never, never!" murmured
Kathleen, putting both her little hands into the major's, and repeating
earnestly, "You will tell mamma it was all my doing."
The gravity of the look which stole over the major's face as he listened
choked Kathleen's voice with sobs, for she felt every one would blame
her, and she was shy and sensitive.
"How could you meddle with the blind?" exclaimed Bona. "Only think, my
dear, of the terrible consequences!"
"Yes, talk to her, Miss St. Faine," said the major. "She must never do
such a thing again."
Bona laid her hand on Kathleen's shoulder, but she shook it off, and
darting away into the darkest corner of the hall, hid herself behind her
father's door, dislodging a whole family of toads, who had crept indoors
to find a shelter from the heat. Kathleen's kitten hotly resented this
intrusion, and sprang after them with tail erect and bristling hair.
The toads receiving many sharp pats on their broad backs from her
uplifted paw, were driven across the hall, backwards and forwards,
keeping Bona dancing on one foot as she tried to follow Kathleen. But
at last she fled in disgust, as the whole toad family were sent leaping
into her dress by pussy's officious paw.
"Oliver! Oliver!" she entreated.
He came to her help with a laugh, which seemed so out of place in the
mournful house he felt ashamed of himself the next minute. He knelt
down beside Kathleen. "I like you, my little woman," he whispered.
"You took the blame on your own shoulders, like a brick. Oh, what
little shoulders they are! Of course, a boy would have done so. Don't
fret about how the wolf got in too much. They are awful creatures. I
am a sailor boy. Terrible things happen at sea. My father was captain
of a merchant vessel. I have been to Calcutta before with him. He died
at sea. The mate brought the ship into port. Bona is only a
school-girl, fresh from England. She was coming out to uncle, so they
sent me on with her. Never mind her, she is such a fuss-fuss!"
Awkward as Oliver's attempts at consolation were, Kathleen felt they
were sincere. She looked into his honest brown eyes and repeated her
question--the question every one shrank from answering--"What will the
big wolf do with Carly?"
"Iffley," called Mr. Desborough from the other side of the chintz
curtain which did duty for a door, "stop those children's tongues, or I
shall go mad."
The major laid an imperative hand on Oliver's arm and marched him off
into the veranda, where a mat in a shady corner invited him to take the
siesta he so much needed after his night-journey. The ayah carried
Kathleen away in her powerful arms.
The stifling, burning heat grew more and more intense. The heavy sleep
of sorrow slowly stole over the desolated household, and the weary day
wore on. The coolies, who had been abroad since the dawn, returned one
by one to eat their rice and repeat the same tale--"No trace! no hope!"
There was nothing more to be done. There is no land like India for
sudden calamity. Those of us who pass many years among its rice-fields
and banyan trees learn a resignation and a promptitude in action not
common elsewhere. To do quickly all that ought to be done, before it is
too late, is so imperative that no one was surprised when Mr. Desborough
announced his determination to send Mrs. Desborough and the two children
still left to them to the hills immediately.
"This very night, if it were possible!" he exclaimed, as he caught up
Racy, only to grieve the more over the loss of poor little Carly. A
terrible fear of another midnight alarm oppressed the whole household.
The syces lighted fires close outside the compound, to scare away any
wild beasts which might be prowling about in the groves and thickets.
Every precaution was taken.
The sun was sinking. The brief ten minutes of summer twilight had come
when every one in India hurries into the open air. The long white line
of road winding between the shady rows of trees was alive with traffic.
Bona and Oliver stood ready for departure, watching the novel scene.
Straggling groups of workers from the indigo factory loitered round the
gates of Mr. Desborough's compound--hideous-looking creatures with
waist-clothes, hands and faces all blue: a whole troop of Bluebeards,
which Bona thought would haunt her very dreams. They meekly drew aside
and salaamed to the ground, as a gilded carriage, drawn by a pair of
white humped oxen, swept by. A long line of carts, creaking under their
loads of indigo pulp, quickly followed. The scantily-clothed villagers
who accompanied them were uttering most unearthly cries to encourage
their weary beasts. A deafening sound of splashing of water and
stamping of feet told of the near neighbourhood of a drove of buffaloes
returning to their homes for the night.
Oliver looked for them in vain. They were making a pathway through the
pool, and only the tips of their noses were to be seen as they sniffed
the evening air, or snatched a mouthful of lily-leaves with snorts of
rejoicing; while groups of merry children on the opposite bank were
washing all the clothing they had--a broad white calico sash or
waist-cloth. Their washing was a curious performance. They banged one
end of the sash on a smooth stone, just under the water, until it
fluttered before them white as snow, then they turned it and washed the
other end.
A group of travellers, resting under a tree on the opposite side of the
road, watched the lighting of the fires with evident curiosity, as they
passed a friendly hookah, or pipe, from one to another. They smoked,
and listened to the remarks of the indigo-workers, who were charging the
children to hasten home before the darkness gathered.
All were talking, all were discussing the disaster of the
morning--rejoicing that the wolf had eaten the bullet of the sahib, and
their children might sleep in peace.
Major Iffley was bargaining with a party of coolie wallahs, who had come
from the village, to carry Bona's dandy to the judge's bungalow.
Mrs. Desborough put back the curtain of her tent, and waved a farewell
to the brother and sister on the eve of their departure, and entreated
the major to remain with them that night at least.
She was pale and calm, but the havoc which that day had made in her
appearance had reduced her to a shadow of her former self.
"Not me only, but my loaded gun," he answered, as he hastened to assure
her every precaution they could devise was already taken.
Bona and Oliver drew a few steps nearer, looking the sympathy they knew
not how to express in words. But the curtain fell suddenly, and they
saw no more of the mournful mother behind it. Even the major, old
family friend as he was, would not, could not intrude on the sacredness
of a grief like hers.
He shook hands with his new young friends, hoped for a happier meeting
before long, and returned to the veranda of Mr. Desborough's bungalow.
He loaded his gun with scrupulous care, and beguiled the weary
night-watch by smoking an unlimited number of pipes, and growling at the
numerous inmates of sun-cracked walls and retired corners, not to
mention the disturbances of the punkah coolies, who cried out in terror
every time a big Langour monkey stole across the lawn or a wild-cat
leaped from the trees, one and all declaring that another wolf had ran
away with the little beebee.
To have had a real skirmish with a wolf, a panther, or even a tiger,
would have been less distasteful to the English officer than soothing
the midnight fancies of the dismayed household, or escaping from the
unwelcome attentions of Kathleen's pet lizard, which had left its
favourite retreat behind the pictures in the dining-room for a midnight
stroll in the veranda.
*CHAPTER VI.*
_*AWAY TO THE HILLS.*_
"Can you ever love me again, mamma?" asked Kathleen when Mrs. Desborough
left the tent on the lawn for the first time, whilst the ayah took her
place by baby Horace, who was slowly but surely recovering.
For three whole days, whilst Kathleen was left to herself, she had never
ceased crying. The servants found her continually by the window of the
bathroom through which the wolf had entered, leaning her burning head
against one of the huge red pitchers which contained the supply of water
for the day's use. Let no one say cold water, for there was nothing
cold to be found anywhere. The bath towels were as hot to the touch as
if they had been hanging in front of a blazing fire. The air was thick
with tawny dust. The oppression was frightful. The excessive dryness
made every breath feel like the blast of a furnace. Insect wings began
to drop off all over the rooms, and were wafted into drifts by the
waving fans from the ceiling, and their wretched little owners, who had
lost them, were wriggling about the floor. The thousands of poor white
ants had already done so much mischief that no one had any pity left for
their forlorn condition. The bhisti, the coolie who does housemaid's
work, came and swept them away. Wasps, crickets, and enormous horned
spiders abounded, but were worse in the night than the day. Not one of
the numerous families of birds which made their homes in the veranda
would sing a note.
Sailor lay at his young mistress's feet, and followed her everywhere
with a pertinacity that said very plainly, "She is all that is left to
me."
The ayah had done her utmost to divert the child. Her dolls and
playthings strewed the veranda.
Bene Madho brought her cakes and sweetmeats when he returned from the
bazaar, which he visited daily. Four or five in the morning is the hour
for marketing in India, and therefore the busiest time in all the day.
He virtually kept his mistress's purse, and bought everything she
wanted. His purchases that morning were numerous, for the preparations
for the removal to the hills were hurried on by Mr. Desborough. He
wanted to take Kathleen away, for in her great sorrow she would not eat
or speak, and was always slipping off unseen, even from him. Children in
India who are left to the black servants so often grow troublesome.
"See that she eats; mind and send her to sleep," he charged the ayah.
But the ayah told him in her despair Kathleen would do neither.
The gentle touch of her mother's hand, and the fond, sad kiss on her
parching lips, at last lifted the lead-like load which to Kathleen
seemed breaking her heart, and she whispered tearfully, "Can you ever
love me again, mamma?"
"Love you, my darling!" repeated Mrs. Desborough, in surprise at such a
question. "Mamma must love her little daughter more than ever now, for
she may soon have no one else to love."
"No, no, mamma, you do not know. I let the wolf in," lamented Kathleen
under her breath.
"The wolf!" exclaimed Mrs. Desborough. "My child, the wolf that killed
dear little Carly!"
"It did not kill him, mamma!" cried Kathleen vehemently. "The stranger
boy said so. O mamma, could not God, who took care of Daniel in the
lions' den, take care of our Carly in the wolf's mouth?"
The bhisti, who was coming in with his water-skin to fill up the great
red pitchers against which Kathleen was leaning, ran to his mistress as
she sank on the edge of the bath, overcome with the thoughts which
Kathleen's wild words had suggested. It was the first hint which had
reached her that there was any uncertainty about her poor little child's
fate.
She could not in her motherly love take away from Kathleen the hope that
Carly was still alive, the poor little sister's distress of mind was so
great. But she saw Mr. Desborough's strong motive for hurrying them off
to the hills. If the wolf which had seized one child was still prowling
about the place, it might seize another in some unguarded moment.
"Let us take them away to-night," she said to him; and the effort to get
ready, which had appeared so overwhelming when he proposed it, seemed
now as nothing compared to the fear of the wolf's return. Beds were
packed up. But beds in India are a simple affair. A thick quilted
cotton _resais_, as they call it, serves for sheets, blanket, and
mattress all in one. A supply of pillows is all that is necessary;
bolsters are unused in India. They must also take calico for punkahs,
and plenty of palm-leaf matting, which is so cheap it can be used for
anything. Bene Madho had bought abundance of all these things, which
the servants were packing in huge bundles, to be carried on poles
between men's shoulders.
How they all worked throughout the day, despite the heat, and Mr.
Desborough harder than anybody! An adventurous kite carried off a fork
from the dinner-table, and a monkey sprang down from the roof of the
veranda and snapped up Kathleen's doll, which it carried to the tallest
tamarind tree in the garden. There it sat on one of the topmost
branches, cuddling the doll in its olive-green paws, as if it were a
great treasure. Kathleen did not mind it much. The gardener assured
her he should find it, as he had found the fork, dropped among the
flowers; and then it seemed so easy to Kathleen to think Carly might be
found in the same sort of way. She never lost the hope which Oliver's
words had put into her heart.
But to hear her say so was an added grief to Mr. Desborough.
In the evening, when they were dressed for the journey, papa took her on
his knee and told her not to talk about the wolves to mamma any more.
Then he bade her remember no one must believe all the servants were
saying, for they were idolaters. They thought that monkeys were better
than men, and that some of them were sacred, and they really worshipped
them. They did not know any better. No one could be sure whether the
tales they told about the wolves were true or not, so he wished her not
to repeat them; it would frighten Horace.
Yes, Horace was better--going with them.
"There he is," said papa, pointing to the ayah, who was carrying him up
and down the veranda, before the windows of the drawing-room where they
were talking. Away flew Kathleen, holding out her arms to take him, and
covering him with kisses.
"She will soon be herself again, with change of scene, and Horace for a
playfellow," Mr. Desborough continued, turning to his wife. "Thank God,
my dear, if the one child has been taken from us, the other is left."
By the close of that busy day everything was ready for departure. The
long procession passed through the gates of the compound just as the
glorious sun was sinking in its bed of ebony and gold; for deep black
bars of cloud were crossing the flood of light which covered the western
sky.
Mr. Desborough's horse was prancing in its impatience, while the coolies
harnessed themselves to the curtained dandies. There was one for Mrs.
Desborough, with Horace on her lap, and another for the ayah and
Kathleen, so that the children could sleep away the greater part of the
journey. Until the heaving of burdens and the buckling of straps were
concluded, the ayah amused Kathleen by pointing to the setting sun, and
gravely assuring her there were twelve suns, brothers, who shone by
turns. This one was going away, and his elder brother, who was so
strong he could kill a man, would come in his place. The ayah was very
glad they would all be safe on the hills before the strongest of all the
twelve took his turn. The younger brothers were much weaker; the
youngest of all was so weak he could hardly melt the snow that fell on
the mountains.
Kathleen thought that this must be one of the tales papa referred to.
The syce, who ran by the horse's head with a fly-flapper in his hand,
was shouting to it to be quiet until the sahib was ready to mount. "O
son of a pig!" he was crying, "O faithless, perverse one! have ye never
learned to be still?"
Away they all went at last, the bearers keeping time with a long,
monotonous, grunting sort of cry, to which the horses were too well
accustomed to be frightened. They soon left the highroad, going at the
rate of four miles an hour, by narrow paths, too narrow for any cart or
carriage. Mounting wave after wave of hill, higher and higher,
sometimes winding by the edge of a precipice, or climbing the steep side
of a giant cliff, then almost tumbling down some mountain valley, on, on
they went, with a slow and even swing, whilst the coolies laughed and
chatted as if they were almost enjoying the heavy burdens which English
arms could never have lifted. Up and up once more, as the moon shone
forth with its silver radiance, bathing the stately forest trees with
its soft, clear light, and making the dark shadows which rested on the
deep ravines all the blacker by contrast. They were passing the
two-storied stone-built castle of a mountain chief, perched like a
gigantic bird's nest on the verge of a tree-crowned height. A bright
and gurgling mountain stream was dashing and foaming by its side as it
leaped from height to height. The travellers were sprinkled with its
flashing spray as they crossed the edge of the torrent, little dreaming
that news of Carl would await them there on their return. But now the
scream of the night-owls, and the flap of the vultures' wings, and the
ever-increasing cries of the jackals, echoed all around.
"But the darkest hour of all the night,
Is that which brings us day."
Oh, if Mr. and Mrs. Desborough could have understood the silent lesson
that midnight journey might have taught them, it would have soothed
their heartache. They could see no ending to their night of sorrow;
they scarcely thought the soothing touch of time would ever dull the
sharpness of their grief. But every night does end.
The first pale gleam of the coming day showed Kathleen the sloping roof
of a white-walled bungalow, peeping amid a forest of pine trees high up
overhead. Should they ever reach it? The flowers which covered those
steep hillsides began to open their petals and drink in the drop of dew
that was falling for each and all.
Racy woke up with laughing eyes and outstretched hands, clamouring for
the bright, many-coloured dahlias which grew by thousands in their path.
The good-natured coolies stopped to gather them by handfuls, to Racy's
infinite delight. The pleasure of pulling them to pieces and pelting
the black shoulders of their bearers with them, found vent in little
squeals of merriment that brought the first faint ghost of a smile to
his mother's lips.
With the daybreak came many changes. Flocks of sheep and goats met them
in the narrow path, making the crossing doubly dangerous. Some asses
laden with grain were on their way to the Rana's castle, and their
drivers drew aside to make their salaam to the English travellers, and
exchange greetings with the coolie wallahs, and carry the news to the
Rana's castle.
A most obstreperous cawing from hundreds of cunning-looking crows arose
from the forest, whilst a regular chorus of wild laughter echoed through
the darkest ravines. It was the morning song of the black-faced
thrushes that congregate in unimaginable multitudes in these hidden
solitudes. But sweeter than all was the lengthened flute-like note of
the black-headed oriole.
Suddenly the path changed. They were going downhill beneath magnificent
trees, yews and oaks rising from an undergrowth of creepers and roses,
checkered with multitudinous flowers that were unknown to Kathleen and
her mother. On they went, swinging to the bottom of the valley, through
whole fields covered with pale-blue foxglove, over which myriads of bees
were flitting.
Horace began to mimic the cry of the black partridges which abounded.
"Tie-tara! tie-tara!" rang on every side, as the footsteps of the
coolies disturbed them in their lowly nests. One more toilsome hill,
and then the coolies paused on a small plateau on the verge of the dark
pine wood. Before them stood the pleasant bungalow, with its hospitable
doors wide open to receive the travellers. Its white-washed rooms
looked airy and clean. A few native servants who belonged to the place
hurried out to welcome them; and Kathleen, who was leaning eagerly
forward, could see the graceful figure of a Hindu woman making cakes,
which she flattened between her hands with astonishing celerity, and
flung into a brass pan which stood near her over a quaint-looking
brazier. The dandies were set down, and Mr. Desborough came to lift his
wife out.
"Too much cover for snakes," he said, as he cast a sharp eye at the
thick, tall grass spreading from the steps of the veranda to the very
edge of the precipice. The half-made garden was more indebted to nature
than art; but that only heightened the peculiar charm that overspread
the place. Here and there the great bauhinia creeper wreathed itself
into delightful bowers above the moss-covered stem of a fallen pine.
Its strong tendrils, like furzy brown horns, caught the overarching
boughs of the tallest trees and bound them in leafy fetters. Proud
peacocks strutted about at will. A stately old stork seemed untiring in
its endeavours to find the snake Mr. Desborough dreaded to discover.
But, above all, the fragrant breezes from the vast pine forest seemed an
earnest of returning health.
*CHAPTER VII.*
_*THE RANA'S SONS.*_
The first thing which attracted Kathleen's attention, when her father
lifted her out of her swinging carriage, was the sight of a Thibetan
woman milking the cows. She was dressed in dirty rags, with a torn
blanket thrown over her head. But round her neck she wore three strings
of beads, so quaint and curious Kathleen could do nothing but look at
them. The beads were as big as hazel-nuts. One row was of coral and
turkois; in another the beads were of a greenish hue, spotted all over
like thrushes' eggs; the third was coral, with silver tags between. So
the ayah took her to beg a cup of milk, whilst the breakfast was
preparing. They made her a cup with a leaf and a thorn; and as the
queer-looking milkmaid twisted it into proper shape round her slender
fingers, she noticed the child's red eyes and colourless cheeks and
heard the story of the lost brother. "O children of pigs!" she
exclaimed. "To think a wolf in May would eat him up! No, no. There has
been many a child brought up by the wolves, as I've heard tell. Perhaps
it was its grandfather; who knows? It would not hurt it if it were."
She caught up Kathleen in her arms, and carried her to the edge of the
cliff, pointing downwards to the tops of the mighty trees growing in the
dark ravines between the hills they had been crossing--hills below
hills, stretching away beneath their feet, so grand and vast and wild.
The gray mud walls of the little Hindu village looked like an ant-hill
in their midst. Kathleen felt dimly how the timid, gentle, imaginative
Hindu men and women, who have lived all their lives within reach of the
formidable beasts that range at will through those forest-glades, grow
so afraid that their fear almost changes to reverence. They say they
are all God's creatures, mightier and stronger than themselves. They
dare not hurt them for the world; and they think when they die they
shall be changed into them. They mix their fancies with all they see
and hear, as her father had told her; but yet she could not help
listening when the weird-looking milkmaid entreated her not to cry any
more, but to see the glorious places where the wild wolves slept in the
sunlight, and to think her little brother was there among them. Oh no;
she did not believe he would want to come back. He would grow into a
wolf, and be happy.
Kathleen felt frightened, for she saw that the ayah believed her. Then
the Thibetan unloosed the wonderful beads from her neck and let Kathleen
examine them. They were heirlooms which had been handed down for many
generations. The coral and turkois had been worn by her
great-grandmother; the coral with the silver tags came from her father's
people. She always wore them; they were safer round her neck than
anywhere. The ayah agreed with her.
Kathleen carried her leafy cup indoors, to show to her mother. A hasty
breakfast was preparing--fowl and eggs, but no bread anywhere, only
chupatties, the thin round cakes which the woman outside was making when
they arrived. They very much resembled a dry crisp pancake. The fresh
hill air gave the children an appetite, and they ate heartily.
"Papa," whispered Kathleen, "may I talk about the wolves to you?"
"Better not, darling," was the quick reply; "father is too busy to talk
now."
Away went Mr. Desborough, ordering and arranging everything to insure
the comfort of his wife and children; for he knew that he must soon
leave them to enjoy their three months' gipsying among the hills. He
trusted that picking flowers and chasing butterflies would soon occupy
all his little fairy's thoughts, if he could but keep her from dwelling
on the terrible remembrance.
Horace was soon fast asleep on his mother's lap, and Kathleen's eyes
were blinking.
There were chairs and tables and charpoys in the bungalow, kept ready
for the use of visitors. So as soon as breakfast was over, the ayah put
Kathleen and Horace to bed.
The rooms were all on one floor, and as every door stood wide open, they
were not out of Mrs. Desborough's sight a single moment.
The charpoy, or Indian bedstead, is only a wooden frame with cross-bars
of webbing, and on this a mat or a resais is laid. The ayah fetched the
pillows Bene Madho was unpacking, and all was ready. Going to bed is
such a simple affair in India, for nobody undresses as we do in England.
Dressing and undressing belong to the bath. The ayah covered the
children with a large mosquito-net, and then flung herself on the
matting beside them.
A few hours' refreshing sleep made them feel like different beings. But
they were still very tired, and were quite content to sit together on
the steps of the veranda, watching the mowers cutting the grass. It was
happiness to Kathleen to have her little brother once again, and she
devoted herself to the delightful task of making Racy laugh. There was
a bird a little bigger than an English starling, with shining wings of
copper colour, violet and blue, which hopped about their feet, and then
flew off to perch on the cow's back, and good-naturedly catch the
insects which were teasing it.
Presently they saw a curious procession coming up the hill--two Hindu
boys riding on donkeys, with syces running beside them carrying scarlet
umbrellas over their heads, ornamented with deep gold-fringes. Behind
them rode their tutor, and after him four native Hindus, carrying trays
on their heads, tastefully piled with fruit and vegetables and flowers.
"Early visitors," exclaimed Mr. Desborough, who was walking about
directing the mowers.
The boys proved to be the two young sons of the Rana of Nataban, or "the
brook of the forest," whose castle they had passed by the way.
"Look! look!" cried Racy, clapping his little hands, and making such a
noise that all the strangers turned their heads and regarded him. The
two young chieftains alighted, and advanced to Mr. Desborough, who held
out his hand to the eldest, English fashion. The boy took it between
both his own and dropped into it something which felt very like a little
ball of cobwebs, but was in reality a tiny bag of musk. He then
directed his servants to place their trays on the ground at Mr.
Desborough's feet. They were a present from his father, the Rana. They
were bright-eyed, intelligent boys, but as delicate and graceful as
girls. Their tutor was a clever young Brahmin, who had been educated in
the government schools, and longed, above all things, to visit London.
He could speak English, and was teaching it to his pupils.
This was quite a relief; and when the formal greetings were well
through, and the boys were seated one on each side of Mr. Desborough, he
sent Kathleen to fetch the jar of English sweets which Bene Madho had
bought for her consolation. It was just unpacked, and stood on the
table near the window by which they were seated, and he perceived the
large, dreamy eyes of his youngest visitor rested upon it very
curiously.
Whilst she was gone for it, Horace came and stood between his father's
knees. He certainly mistook the two young ranas for big dolls, as they
sat as stately and grave as they could in their saffron-coloured
dresses, embroidered belts, and heavy silver bracelets. Horace, with his
curly flaxen hair and blue eyes, was equally interesting to them, and
the drum with which he was playing still more so.
The old trouble had returned to Kathleen's eyes as she ran in for her
jar of peppermint lozenges. She was thinking of the Thibetan woman and
all she had said. "Oh, if Carl were alive in the jungle, could not they
find him and bring him home?" Her little heart was full. She longed to
pour it out to her mother, but her father's words restrained her. Mrs.
Desborough looked so ill, so sadly worn, and kissed her so fondly,
Kathleen could only venture to entreat her to come and look at the
strange milkmaid, with her wonderful necklaces. She was hoping the
Thibetan would repeat to her the strange things she had said about Carl.
Mrs. Desborough promised at once; she had not the heart to refuse her
darlings anything, for fear they, too, should be stolen from her. She
followed her little daughter into the veranda, putting on her gloves.
They were black. The youngest boy, Aglar, had never seen a lady's glove
before. He watched her intently, as if he thought her hands had
suddenly changed colour. He spoke to his tutor in his soft, musical
Indi; who gravely informed her the young Rana had such a longing to feel
the lady's hand, might he be permitted to touch it?
Mrs. Desborough smiled, and held hers out to him.
Aglar rose, made his salaam, and softly felt her fingers all over. It
seemed to afford him infinite delight. So, to amuse him, Mrs.
Desborough took off her gloves and put them on again. The long row of
buttons pleased him exceedingly.
"Give them to him," suggested Mr. Desborough, who was wondering how he
could return the Rana's present, having nothing with him but just the
necessary things his family required.
The transfer was made; the mystery of the buttons made easy, too, by the
addition of a tiny button-hook. The little fellow was in ecstasies. Not
so Horace, who set up a clamour to have his mother's gloves back, which
amused them all.
Mr. Desborough was talking to the elder, whose name was Rattam, about
his lessons. He was fond of reading, had made some way in English and
Persian, and was much gratified with the gift of an English book on
botany, which Mr. Desborough had brought with him, hoping to interest
his wife in the lovely plants and flowers she was sure to find among the
hills. It was very doubtful whether the new owner could possibly
understand it, but he liked to examine the plates.
Mr. Desborough thought they were getting on, when Horace renewed his
clamour, pointing at Aglar, and declaring, "He is nobody but a native.
He shan't have my mamma's gloves. He shan't!"
Mrs. Desborough grew pink with annoyance, for she knew their young
visitors would be highly offended, if they really understood English
well enough to know what the child was saying. In vain his father
frowned. He would not be quieted. Kathleen slipped round and filled
his mouth with her peppermint, to stop his tongue.
"We are all spoiling him as fast as we can," muttered her father, with a
bitter sigh, as he sent her across to Rattam, who regarded Horace with
pure amazement. No Hindu child is ever permitted to be rough or rude.
Kathleen shyly offered Rattam her jar, trying to make up for Racy's
naughtiness by behaving as prettily as she could. Rattam examined her
peppermints curiously, and then drew back, afraid to touch one, for it
might be degrading to himself.
He dare not taste one, he said, for fear of losing caste by eating
anything which might be improper for a Brahmin.
This horror of losing caste--that is, of forfeiting his position as a
Brahmin, one of the highest class of Hindus, to whom all the others look
up with reverence--is the bugbear of a Hindu gentleman's life, and
Rattam was fully impressed with its importance.
Yet he was gratified; and although no persuasion could induce him to
touch the peppermint, he expressed his thanks with the air of a prince,
adding, "You must permit me to send you a bird of my own training, to be
my vakeel" ("Ambassador," interpreted the tutor), "and remind you of
me," Rattam went on; "and, I assure you, he is a very amusing fellow."
He spoke so carefully and so correctly, it made Kathleen think he had
learned his English sentences ready before he came. She wished she
could ask her ayah how she ought to answer him in Indi; but that was out
of the question. If he understood not her reply, he knew by her shy
little smile she was pleased.
"It is a hill-mina from Nepaul, with a remarkably good, rich voice--"
He looked to his tutor, perplexed for the next word. It was not
forthcoming.
"Does the little beebee understand Persian?" he asked.
Mr. Desborough shook his head, relieved to find his guest's English was
not yet perfect.
"Persian is our French," said the tutor, making a sign to Aglar, who had
not yet finished his examination of Mrs. Desborough's hands; but when he
caught his tutor's eye, he dropped down on the ground by her side,
sitting cross-legged, as still and stately as a little statue. He never
raised his eyes or uttered a single word until a second sign gave him
permission.
When the ayah appeared with the children's box of playthings, the two
young visitors forgot themselves and their grand manners in the wonders
of Kathleen's magic top, and behaved with an easy grace which was
natural to them, and much more prepossessing.
"Let Aglar take it away with him, Kathy," whispered Mr. Desborough; "I
will buy you another."
Mamma had slipped out during the exhibition of the playthings to consult
with Bene Madho about the tiffen. She thought he might know better than
she did what such fastidious young princes would condescend to eat.
He told her they never touched anything but butter, sweetmeats, and
vegetables or fruit. Butter Mrs. Desborough could procure in plenty,
but the sweetmeats ran wofully short. Salad and syllabub, with some of
their own beautiful fruit, had to suffice.
The amount of butter the little princes consumed was something
astonishing. No wonder Rattam was so fat. Aglar's hoarse cough
distressed Mrs. Desborough. She always carried a well-filled
medicine-chest about with her, for the sake of her own delicate
children. So she found him some cough-drops, and a porous plaster for
the chest, to lay on the empty trays her husband was trying to refill.
Kathleen relinquished a great many of her toys to please their dusky
visitors. Rattam liked everything in pairs. He was highly delighted
with her doll's tea-cups, as he said "there were three pairs." But he
returned her the teapot. One of a sort looked mean in his eyes.
When tiffen was over, their interesting neighbours rose to depart, with
the demure gravity of old men.
*CHAPTER VIII.*
_*THE INVITATION.*_
The night before Mr. Desborough's return to Noak-holly, he called
Kathleen to him as he sat dreamily watching the glorious landscape as if
he saw it not.
"Can my darling sing to me?" he said, softly humming the first notes of
a tune she had heard him sing in the old times, when Kathleen was "her
daddy's ae bairn," and the cot stood empty.
He put his arm round her waist, and taught her as he used to do, beating
time with his other hand.
"Go bury thy sorrow, the world has its share,
Go bury it deeply, go hide it with care."
She turned and looked in his face.
"Go on," he said, in the quiet, decided tone Kathleen always obeyed.
"Go think of it calmly, when curtained by night;
Go tell it to Jesus, and all will be right."
She sang it after him, drawing a little closer, for her father was not
often like this, until they came to the last verse--
"Hearts growing a-weary with heavier woe,
Now droop 'mid the darkness--go, comfort them, go!
Go bury thy sorrows, let others be blest:
Go give them the sunshine, tell Jesus the rest."
"Is my little girl too young to understand what that means?" he asked,
stroking her hair.
"Yes, I do understand, papa," she answered thoughtfully.
"Your mother's sorrow is heavier than ours," he went on, "just because
she was Carly's mother; and Racy is pining for his twin-brother, just
because he was his twin. It is that which makes him so techy and
troublesome. Will my Kathleen try to comfort them when I am gone?"
Instead of the promise he expected there came a rush of tears, so hot
and bitter he was taken aback.
"What is the matter, my love?" he asked.
"The dreadful misery to think I let the wolf in!" she sobbed.
"We will bury all that," he answered. "It will not bring sunshine to
mamma to see you crying. Think! what ought you to be to poor mamma?"
"Carly and Kathleen, too," she murmured. "But I can't undo it."
His arm went round her very closely; it answered her better than words.
No fear of Kathleen talking to poor mamma about the wolves after that
night. A new object was before her--how to give others the sunshine.
Her father had scarcely left them when Rattam's messenger arrived with
the promised bird, and an invitation to the Sahib Desborough to visit
the Rana at his castle. Aglar's mother, the Ranee, added her entreaties
that the beebee, who had given her youngest son the little breastplate
against the weather (which was endued with such a wonderful charm it had
hushed the noise in his breast and given him the vivacity of a panther)
would let a grateful mother look upon her face and beg a similar charm
for her other son. "The women of your people, sahib," said the letter,
which was evidently written by the tutor, "can come and go. It would
demean ours to descend the stair of their own home; but they are dying
to see more of the wonderful magic the beebee Desborough possesses."
The Rana's peon or foot-soldier, who had brought the letter, stood
watching Mrs. Desborough as if she were some superior being. He had
shuffled off his shoes as a mark of respect before he approached her,
and now stood before her salaaming at every interval when she happened
to raise her eyes.
Of course there were a few crows strutting about the veranda, and little
fretful Racy was afraid of their sharp beaks. Kathleen was trying to
tempt them away by scattering crumbs. They were so tame they soon ran
after her to get them.
"More magic," thought the peon, bowing himself to the ground, as she
came near to him to look at the wonderful bird Rattam had sent her.
It was jet black, with a coat as glossy as satin, and a lovely dark eye,
full of fun and intelligence. Its beak and claws were deep orange. It
was looking about very curiously, pricking its ear to every sound.
Kathleen drew her finger across the gilded wire of its cage, and it
called out in a rich, sweet voice--a wonderfully rich voice, and yet an
odd one--"Ram, Ram, baher!" just as he had heard Rattam and Aglar call
to one another. The ayah told her it meant "God, God, brother!" which
is the Hindu way of speaking, just as English boys would say,
"Good-morning, brother!"
With her nurse and her bird talking Indi, Kathleen thought she should
soon learn enough to understand Rattam if he came again.
Mrs. Desborough wrote her reply, and promised to visit the Ranee when
her husband returned.
Little mischievous Horace was fitting on the peon's slippers, and quite
ready to dispute possession with the "man in petticoats," as he called
the peon. Kathleen and the ayah pursued him half round the veranda. They
would not have got the slippers away then without a roar, if Kathleen's
wonderful bird had not begun to make a creaking sound, like a rusty
hinge, which it imitated exactly, and then as suddenly changed its note
to the cheerful crowing of a cock. This diverted Horace amazingly. The
peon recovered his slippers, put up his umbrella, and departed with the
English beebee's answer.
But there was many a long day to wait before the visit could be paid.
Mrs. Desborough was glad, for she had no heart for visits, although she
thought it only right to go, as no one but a lady is scarcely ever
permitted to enter the homes of the higher classes of Hindus. In the
meanwhile the invigorating air of the hills was restoring the children
to health and spirits. Mrs. Desborough hoped Horace would forget some
of his provoking sayings, which he had caught up on the journey.
The Thibetan milkmaid had gone away to her own people before Kathleen
could persuade her mother to go and talk to her.
But Kathleen would describe the dark-skinned woman, with her dirty rags
and glittering beads, so earnestly and so frequently, that her mother
began to suspect there was something more she had not told her. "Well?"
she would say questioningly; and then Kathleen would stop short,
remembering her father's words.
Mrs. Desborough asked the ayah what the Thibetan had said.
"Nothing, nothing," was the quick reply. "We only tried to comfort the
little beebee, and stop her tears, that fell like evening rain."
The ayah was frightened, for her mistress turned pale and faint at the
most distant allusion to her dreadful loss. So she led the children
away, and filled their pinafores with rice to feed the fishes.
Whilst Horace was throwing it by handfuls into the basin of the
fountain, which was soon a moving mass of heads and tails, the ayah drew
Kathleen away.
"Look at the mem-sahib," she whispered, so that Horace should not hear.
"It is the cry for the lost one shut in her heart that hurts. Don't
wake it."
Kathleen hung her head; for the first time in her life it seemed wrong
to speak out all her thoughts to her mother. But the hope still lived
on--Carl would some day be found. It helped her to fulfil her father's
parting charge, and try to give the sunshine to Horace and her mother.
The dry heat of May gave place at last to the sultry, oppressive damp of
the rainy season; and Mrs. Desborough began to long for home.
*CHAPTER IX.*
_*OLIVER AND HIS UNCLE.*_
When Mr. Desborough returned to fetch his wife and children, he found
his little fairy half a head taller and twice as strong as at the
never-to-be-forgotten singing-lesson the night before he left.
"Well! and what have you been doing?" he asked, when he found himself
seated once more, with a child on each knee. "Setting traps to catch
the sunbeams to give away, eh, my precious?" he continued.
"But I think Racy got them all," Kathleen answered.
"_Via_ Racy is one of the best of roads to reach mamma," smiled her
father, as he stroked her hair fondly, and turned to his boy, who was
clamorously demanding all his attention.
A game at horses round the white-washed sitting-room assured Mr.
Desborough that Kathleen's traps had not been set in vain. Horace was
riding triumphant on his father's shoulder, shouting at him after the
fashion of the native drivers, in high glee, when the card of an English
gentleman was brought in by Bene Madho.
Who should it be but the deputy-judge, who was going on circuit, and had
just arrived to hold a "bed of justice," as the natives say, in the
neighbourhood of Nataban.
"Well set to work, Desborough!" he exclaimed. "Have I followed my bit of
pasteboard too quickly?"
"No, no," retorted Mr. Desborough warmly. "We are going away to-morrow.
There are rooms enough here to accommodate all for a night."
"My fellows can sleep anywhere," continued the deputy, chucking Kathleen
under her chin, and pointing to his train of servants, who were
chattering without. "I and my nephew will do our best not to interfere
with the ladies' comfort. Only say the word, and we will make quick
work here, and hurry forward to our next station."
"Oliver!"
Mr. Desborough scrambled to his feet, and with Horace still tugging at
his watch-chain, held out his hand to the boy without recognizing him;
but Kathleen knew him again in a moment.
"Mr. Desborough has forgotten you, my boy," whispered the deputy. "Do
not refresh his memory; it will only revive a painful recollection."
Oliver nodded; and they all went in together to congratulate Mrs.
Desborough on the improvement in her children.
When old neighbours meet there is no lack of conversation. The
gentlemen sat long over the dinner, discussing the recent rains, the
present attitude of Russia, and the success of the government schools
for Hindu boys, in which the deputy was greatly interested. Kathleen sat
beside her father, forgetting to eat. At the first movement she glided
round to her mother's chair with a breathless request.
"May I show my bird to Oliver? and may we go for a walk--a long walk?"
she asked.
"Certainly, my love, if he wishes," answered Mrs. Desborough.
Kathleen tripped on. A gentle pull at Oliver's sleeve made him look
round. He was too good-natured to decline the shy invitation.
Life was very free and easy at the little hill-station. The whitewashed
bungalow was neither inn nor lodging-house, but something between. When
one party went away, there was usually another waiting to take their
place, so that the servants who were stationary there were not
disconcerted by the deputy's arrival. They were laughing and singing as
they hurried about, contriving to make an unusual hubbub, as a sort of
tribute to the dignity of the Stunt Sahib, as they called the deputy.
Some of the newly-arrived were seated in groups, cross-legged, on the
grass, smoking a friendly pipe with their old acquaintances of a
previous year. Oliver would willingly have lingered to watch them, so he
divided his attentions between them and Kathleen's wonderful bird.
It was crying so like a child as they drew near its cage, Oliver was
looking about for some squalling baby among the dusky smokers. Then it
changed its note, and imitated the soft musical tinkle of the temple
bell, where Rattam and Aglar went to see the sacrifices to their
idol-gods. Oliver was enchanted. "It beats the parrots hollow!" he
exclaimed. "It is something like a bird."
"I have not much left to give away," said Kathleen, thinking a little
regretfully of all the toys she had bestowed upon the young princes;
"but I'll give you my beauty mina, if you will take me for a walk, a
very long walk."
"You!" he repeated in astonishment. "Which way do you want to go?"
She tripped down the veranda steps, and pointing to the wilder part of
the ground, ran eagerly forward, looking back every now and then to see
if Oliver would follow.
The ground around the house was partially gardened, but the further they
went the wilder it grew. All path was lost. Arrowroot and ginger plants
sprang up spontaneously. By one of their tall green sheaths, with its
droop of snow-white bells like a magnified Solomon's seal, Kathleen
paused panting until her companion overtook her.
Off she started again.
"Is it a jolly game at hare-and-hounds or follow-my-leader that you are
starting?" asked Oliver. "You are not quite right for either. We boys
never played just so. In the first place, you should start fair."
"It is not play at all," answered Kathleen, slipping her hand into his
and looking up beseechingly. "You do not mind, do you?"
"Not a bit," he retorted, holding back a mimosa bush to let her pass.
She had led him on to a dangerous spot, where the ground sloped steeply
down to the bottom of a ravine.
Dark shadows of bushes and plants unknown to him obscured its depths. A
sound of gurgling water met his ear, but the gloom was so profound he
could distinguish nothing.
"Is not that a place where the wild beasts sleep? Now will you take me
as far down as you can?" asked Kathleen.
"No," answered Oliver bluntly--"no, indeed; you must be crazy!"
She drew her hand away, and leaning over the edge of the precipice,
called, "Carl, Carl, are you there?"
Oliver caught hold of her dress and pulled her back. "You absurd little
creature, you'll slip and fall if you do so!"
"Oh, never mind that. If I could make him hear me--if I could but make
him hear!" she wailed. "But I am not to talk about the wolves--I'm not
to talk."
"Yes, you may to me; you may say anything you like to me," interposed
Oliver, resolutely turning her round and walking back towards the house.
"Do you speak the truth?" asked Kathleen.
"I tell you what, young lady: I don't admire your ways one bit. If you
had only been a boy, I'd have bowled you over for that in less than a
minute. What do you mean by asking me such a question?" he retorted in
hot indignation.
"Then I may believe what you tell me, and you said he was alive in the
jungle!" she exclaimed.
Oliver gave a long-drawn "Oh!" adding slowly, in a considerate tone,
"Yes, I did. I said so because I thought so."
"And the milkmaid thought so!" she cried. Then for the fiftieth time
she pictured the dusky face, with its rags and beads, and repeated the
soft Indian words until the white walls of the bungalow were once again
in sight.
"Now we must not talk any more," she exclaimed, "for fear mamma should
hear us. There she is!"
Oliver looked up, and saw Mrs. Desborough seated on one of the fallen
trees, talking to his uncle. The ayah was taking Horace for his evening
walk. Being new to Indian life, Oliver stared in astonishment at the
strange way in which she carried the child. Instead of taking him in her
arms, as an English nurse would do, she had a nice little soft saddle
strapped round her waist, on which he was riding. Her arm was round
him, to keep him from falling, whilst his own clasped her neck, and his
little feet were kicking her back and front. For Horace was as restless
and fidgety as a young elephant, which every mahout (elephant-driver)
knows never is at peace a single moment. It is always shaking its
flapping ears, or switching its tail, twisting and untwisting its trunk,
or stamping with one or other of its big feet. But the ayah was
patience itself in her untiring devotion to her white baby.
"Look at that nephew of mine," laughed the deputy. "I shall have to
start him off again to England, for a couple of years at the East India
College, before I put him into harness. But Iffley has taken to him
wonderfully. Now his sister--"
But Bona's perfections were cut short by a squall from Horace. The
Rana's peon was approaching with renewed invitations to the whole party.
"We must go," said the deputy, who was bent upon cultivating friendly
intercourse between himself and his dusky neighbours.
He had won their respect by his uprightness--perhaps even their esteem;
"but to get a step beyond that beats me," he declared. "You must know
as well as I do, Desborough, how these Orientals hedge in their private
life with their ceremonies and formalities, and keep us all at a
distance. Here I have been coaxing them out of their shyness and
reserve for years. What way have I made? One-half the pains I've taken
would have brought these monkeys from the woods around me as tame and
affectionate as the kitten in your veranda at home. Now you ladies have
a chance. The door of the zenana opens to you. That is why I want my
niece. I want her to take her share in the Englishwoman's mission to
her dusky sisters. You will go with us, Mrs. Desborough?"
"Yes," she replied. "I had intended to do so; but," she added, turning
to Mr. Desborough, "we must take the children with us." The fact was,
she dare not leave them behind.
"No objection to that, as far as I can see," returned the deputy; and so
it was settled.
As Oliver was falling asleep that night, he seemed to hear nothing but
the little sister's passionate cry, "Carl, Carl, come back!" How she
had clung to the lingering hope his words had implanted! He almost
wished he had never said them. Did he and Bona love each other like
that? He saw nothing but the fluttering of Kathleen's sash and the
flapping of her broad sun-hat as she rushed before him to the very edge
of the precipice. How she must have longed to get there! and it was
such a dangerous place. Oh the innocence of the thought! The brave,
faithful heart! Yes, that was it. Oliver hated himself for having
spoken those misleading words. "But then I believed it after what old
Gobur had said."
He tossed and slept, and dreamed of Romulus and Remus, and the old Roman
fable of the she-wolf. When he waked at last, the day was well begun,
and everybody around him was busy preparing for the visit to the Rana's
castle. He wished his schoolbooks had not all been left behind him in
another hemisphere. There was no Roman history to be found in the hill
bungalow, or he would have refreshed his memory about that old-world
tale of the founders of Rome. His uncle thought him unusually moody as
he mounted his little pony and rode after him. It was a glorious
morning. Mrs. Desborough's bearers were chanting gaily. Mr.
Desborough, who rode behind her, turned his head to make some remark
upon the indigo crops to the deputy, who was still descanting about
"that fog-bank which always rises between us and the people of the land,
do what we will."
Oliver yawned, feeling quite sure beforehand he should detest a fat boy
who ate nothing but butter and sugar, and wouldn't and couldn't run a
race if it were to save his life, whatever his colour might be. He was
thinking of Major Iffley's impatient interruptions, when his uncle
started his favourite topic before him.
"Let the natives alone, St. Faine. They are the most exclusive set on
earth. It is all labour in vain, I tell you."
The road by which they reached the Rana's castle was very picturesque,
shaded here and there by grand old forest trees and great clumps of
waving bamboos. The village houses were very low, and their peaked
thatched roofs covered with a climbing plant with melon-like leaves.
Clusters of tamarind trees secured the necessary shade. Two men were
ploughing in a field, and three more were idly watching their work.
Several women were scouring their brass pans; at their feet lay their
babies, cooing or fretting. Some graceful girls were drawing water at
the village well. There was a native musician with his sitar, and a
group of listeners round him, some smoking, and others playing a native
game with little bits of wood.
They lifted up their eyes and saw the English party approaching. The
women snatched up their infants and ducked under the mats, which serve
for doors to their huts, as if to be seen were to be killed. The girls
by the trickling water under the tamarind trees muffled up their faces
and waddled away as fast as they could. To walk like a goose is a Hindu
girl's desire. The very children, intent upon the manufacture of
dust-pies, jumped up and hid themselves; whilst the men started, gave a
pull at their clothes, pushed the sitar out of sight, threw away their
pipes, and stood in a row, bowing like so many machines, humble, shy,
and mute.
The deputy's benevolent face wore nothing but smiles; but the poor
creatures had received little but cruelty from the hands of foreigners
for so many generations, they could hardly believe in a stranger's
kindness. The headman of the village had bustled off to put on his
company clothes, which he kept very carefully for state occasions.
He looked as if he had wrapped himself in a clean sheet; all his dignity
lay in his belt, which had served his grandfather before him. However,
he had found his tongue, as the children say, and came to meet the
deputy with a string of compliments as extravagant as they were
meaningless. Just then the long-drawn, quavering notes of some huge
horns, drawing nearer and nearer, announced the approach of the Rana,
who was coming to meet his visitors. Presently they saw him sweeping
down the castle hill in his bullock-chariot, all brightness and gilding.
Four of his men were holding over his head a huge scarlet umbrella with
long glittering fringes; several more were running by his side. A small
band of horsemen preceded this stately chariot, sounding their big brass
trumpets from time to time; and behind it came a motley procession of
his chief followers and relations. In the midst of them Oliver detected
that fat boy he was so certain he must dislike.
*CHAPTER X.*
_*A VISIT TO THE RANA'S CASTLE.*_
The deputy being the chief of the English party, was pressed to take a
seat in the chariot by the Rana's side. Then the runners and the riders
turned their faces, and the long procession wound its way up the castle
hill. All the dogs in the village collected to bark at the heels of the
departing horsemen, and bright little eyes peeped round the corners to
see them go. Then the girls returned to their pitchers, and the men to
their music and play.
The strong and time-worn castle was all of stone, with rich, deep
balconies and oriel windows. The carving of the stone screens which
protected them was as delicate as point lace. Behind those splendid
screens the ladies of the family were peeping as furtively and shyly as
the village children, and quite as anxious to see without being seen.
All Kathleen's attention was taken up by the dear little gray monkeys,
who were playing at hide-and-seek with each other through the beautiful
tracery. Some noise within sent them off with a scamper. Their leader
called them round him; and Kathleen soon saw them busy as ever in the
court below, turning over stones, and hunting out beetles and scorpions,
which they caught by the tail. The biggest of them was about the size
of a bull-terrier; and their babies were the dearest little sweets in
the world.
It was slow work defiling one by one across the bridge which spanned the
stream in front of the castle. Mrs. Desborough and the children had
entered the large, untidy court some minutes before Mr. Desborough and
Oliver arrived; so they waited, looking round them at the novel scene.
In the centre of the court there was a large group of horses picketed,
who seemed very much annoyed by the descent of the small gray plagues
from the balcony, who showed no respect for stamping hoofs or kicking
heels. All round the court there were rows of straw-thatched huts and
sheds, where the servants lived, next door to the animals in their
charge. There were lynxes, kept for hunting hares; and splendid spotted
leopards, tamed, and tied to strong posts, each with a leather hood over
its eyes, to keep it from springing unawares. More than a hundred dogs
of different kinds were kennelled in their midst. The yelling and the
barking which arose on all sides so terrified Mrs. Desborough, that she
positively refused to get out of her dandy or suffer Horace to be taken
from her arms, although he roared in concert with all his might; so her
bearers rested in front of the flight of white steps leading to the
porch of the castle.
A group of servants had gathered round them--looking very haughty in
their clean white dresses and turbans--who were announcing the arrival
of the guests with eager cries.
When Mr. Desborough's puggaree appeared beneath the gateway arch, one of
the peons stepped forward with his mace in his hand to meet him; and
behind the peon, on the topmost step, stood the guest-receivers of the
Rana--two fat little old men, dressed all in white--bowing low, and
inviting him to enter.
But no; Mr. Desborough must first of all reassure his terrified wife and
pacify his screaming boy. Oliver thought it only manly to follow his
example, and stepped up to the other dandy, expecting to find Kathleen
in a similar state. The ayah was leaning forward, with her finger on
her lips to enjoin silence, and Kathleen was gazing breathlessly in her
face.
"Hush!" she whispered, pointing to one of the Rana's men, who stood
staring at Horace, as Mr. Desborough lifted him up, with a scared,
startled look, as if he had seen some marvellous prodigy.
What was the fellow saying? The ayah knew, and Kathleen more than
guessed. She had been learning Indi from her ayah ever since Rattam's
visit. She understood it better than Oliver; a great deal better than
her mother. She was trying to get out of the dandy in her impatience.
"Let me go! let me go!" she entreated. "I must go to papa."
Mr. Desborough was looking round to see if she were all right. He
relinquished Horace to the ayah, and gave his arm to his wife.
"I'll take care of Kathleen," said Oliver, with the air of a
grandfather. But she tried to escape from him.
"I must tell papa," she persisted.
"Nonsense!" he urged; "you can't."
He led her up the steps resolutely.
"Which are the Ranee's apartments?" asked Mr. Desborough of the
servants.
"They are in that direction looking east; but we cannot point them out,"
was the deferential reply, with a horrified look, as if to be guilty of
such rudeness as pointing out the window of a lady's room would indeed
have been unparalleled.
But then they all entertained a private opinion that these English
sahibs were utterly incomprehensible, and on some points downright
lunatics.
Kathleen turned round, and pointing to the jogie, who still stood
staring after them, she whispered to Oliver, "That is the man. He was
looking at Horace, and he said, 'I saw that child last night come down
the koond on a booraba'--that is a wolf, you know."
"Is it?" said Oliver, who did not happen to know that booraba was Indi
for "wolf." "Well," he continued, "it is certain he did not see your
brother there."
"No, not Horace," she cried, clasping her hands passionately; "but could
it--could it be Carl?"
She was forced to be silent now. They were entering the Rana's hall of
audience, a huge room, thirty feet high, with a gallery at one end, and
at the other a much smaller, narrower room, with carved marble arches
and glittering walls.
Here they saw the Rana himself, seated upon a large, low sofa, with the
deputy by his side; and Aglar, as still and motionless as a lizard, was
sitting cross-legged at his feet. A few stout old gentlemen, swathed in
costly shawls, looked as if they were propped up against the wall, on
English chairs. They had come to see the sahibs, and the Rana thought
it only complimentary to provide English seats when English visitors
were expected; but his uncles and brothers seemed to find them
singularly uncomfortable. They balanced themselves on the edge of the
chairs, and threw their heads back with great solemnity. But what to do
with their arms seemed the difficulty. One old gentleman stuck his
against his sides, and spread out all his fingers; another was vainly
trying to rest his hands on his knees without leaning forward.
Horace began to point at them and laugh, and Oliver was nearly as bad,
in spite of his uncle's frown.
Beneath the marble arches there were long flights of steps leading down
to the gardens, which were overlooked by the back of the zenana, or
ladies' rooms. The carefully-screened balconies looked like one
splendid mass of stone lace. In the centre of the gardens there was an
artificial lake, fed by the mountain stream, where golden fish were
leaping in the sunlight, and stately swans were gliding. Around its
banks, and almost built out into the water, at equal distances, there
were white marble kiosks, or arbours; and high above the stately trees
and luxurious wealth of flowers the jagged red cliffs were frowning.
Mrs. Desborough was lost in admiration as she was pompously conducted
down the snowy steps, across the velvet grass, to a low door leading to
the Ranee's apartments, the ayah following with Horace, riding on his
little saddle, and Kathleen shyly tripping by her side.
The low door was unfastened, and they entered a dark passage, with an
earthen floor, leading to a long staircase, which was very dirty. The
contrast to the hall of audience was so great, Mrs. Desborough thought
there was some mistake, when out they stepped upon the cool and shadowy
balcony. Little dark heads, with snowy whiskers, came poking through
the interstices of the stone-work, to watch the English children, and
absurd-looking monkey mothers tossed up their babies and jabbered
unceasingly. The folding-doors of the Ranee's sitting-room stood wide
open. Its Eastern loveliness was spoiled by some smart-looking English
tables and looking-glasses, of which the Ranee was very proud. She was
seated upon a velvet cushion, with her little girls by her side, and her
servants standing round her. The Hindu lady looked so stately and calm
and stern, as she surveyed her visitors with a fixed, cold stare,
Kathleen was almost afraid of her. Her long black hair was twisted into
a sort of coronet, fastened by a silver buckle, and set with large
silver bosses. Her fixed and haughty eyes were dark with excessive
brightness. Her proud, curving lips and set white teeth seemed as if
they could scarcely permit the word of welcome to pass between them. A
little girl, as beautiful as her mother, was leaning against her, and on
the other side an elder sister sat with her arm round her mother's
waist, embowered in shawls and her own long, dark, waving curls. They
were still more fascinating children than their brothers. All the force
and fire of the family seemed to have centred in its females. But the
youngest girl hid her face in her mother's lap, and the other only
ventured on a sidelong glance at the strangers--evidently terrified at
Horace, who was manfully kicking at his ayah's waist. The sight of a
splendid doll Mrs. Desborough was unpacking drew the shy little
Orientals from their mother's side. The ayah was interpreter. Whilst
the ladies were admiring each other's children, Kathleen took the doll
on her lap, and showed the little sisters how to dress and undress it.
Then they sent for their own dolls, and displayed the mystery of their
tinselled robes and gossamer veils. Here at least was common ground.
And perhaps those little Hindus loved their dolls even more than
Kathleen did, for they had scarcely any other pleasure in their dull
life; for while their brothers were made so much of by every one, nobody
wanted them.
The gentlemen remained in the hall of audience, where the cup-filler and
the hookah-filler were in attendance. Oliver had the best of it; for
although he could do nothing but laugh at Rattam, in his
saffron-coloured satin dress, and flowered silk trousers, and his turban
hung round with tigers' teeth set in gold, not to mention his bracelets
and chains, he found him a cleverer boy than himself. They went
together into the Rana's armoury; and whilst Rattam was showing him
swords of fabulous value, from the jewels in their hilts, and helmets of
the strangest shapes imaginable, Oliver decided he was not half a duffer
after all.
They were entering the room where the Rana kept his clocks; for he had a
perfect passion for clocks, and had accumulated some dozens--French,
Dutch, English, and American, all ticking. Oliver thought this a bit of
a bore. "Couldn't we have a stroll out of doors?" he asked. Rattam
agreed.
Oliver gave a tug at his own hair. It was a habit of his when he felt
uncertain what to do. But the momentary hesitation passed over. He
turned to Rattam and said, "Do you know that Mr. Desborough lost a child
a month or two ago? it was carried off by a wolf."
"Ah!" interrupted Rattam.
"One of your fellows was saying something about a child in the jungle as
we rode into your court. I want to ask him what it was," continued
Oliver. "I'll tell you all about the loss of the poor little thing as
we go along."
"Leave that to me," replied Rattam, waving his hand with the air of a
prince. "You would scarcely understand the jogie's tale if you heard
it. Our people are very imaginative. It may be nothing but moonshine
and shadow. Leave it to me. Before you quit the castle, all he has to
tell shall be known."
The boys had broken the ice of ceremony in which their elders were
freezing, and agreeing that it would be cruelty to raise false hopes by
speaking a word too soon to either Mr. or Mrs. Desborough, they parted.
Oliver returned to the hall, to sit in irksome silence, while Rattam
speedily vanished. The old gentlemen by the wall looked as if they were
longing to slip off their chairs on to the floor, and take a rest after
their own fashion. The appearance of the attendants with trays of
sweetmeats was a welcome diversion.
The five shawl bundles munched contentedly, mumbling a word or two now
and then, when another servant appeared carrying a vase of most
overpowering scent. He made a dart at Mr. Desborough's handkerchief and
deluged it. Oliver's not being quite so handy, he received a dab on the
sleeve of his jacket, where it remained to torment him for many a long
day, by its overpowering perfume, which nothing could get rid of. The
deputy's handkerchief was forthcoming in a moment. Like a prudent man
who knew what he had to expect, he had provided himself with a second;
and when he received it again well saturated, he quietly dropped it on
the floor. Aglar was at play with his ball in the gardens, tossing it
up to the balcony through which his little sisters and Kathleen were
peeping, when Rattam reappeared.
He was anxious to show the young sahibs the wild beasts in the gardens;
not only Oliver, but Horace also. That unmanageable young gentleman was
clamouring for the ball, which bounded high over Aglar's head; so that
Rattam's proposition was thankfully acceded to by all parties. The boys
visited the dark dens, with their paved floors, well sluiced with water
from the lake, which were built at intervals in the midst of myrtle
bowers and clustering roses, and watched the fierce striped tigers,
growling behind the strong iron bars which enclosed the front of the
dens.
Rattam drew Oliver aside. "It is a tale of magic," he whispered, "in
which all our people believe, but yours do not. Yet the beebee
Desborough must possess some powerful charms. Think of the breastplate
she gave my brother! A bit of sticky paper, but possessing such
virtue."
"Bosh!" muttered Oliver. "It was a plaster, wasn't it?" and he laughed
heartily.
"These charms that I wear," continued Rattam, touching the loops of
tigers' teeth in his turban and the silver chains round his neck, "will
keep me from all evil, unless I destroy their power by some act of my
own."
"Then," retorted Oliver, "I should call them reminders to do right and
fear no evil."
"Ah, you English have such different ideas to ours!" said Rattam. "But
I have sent for an old man from the village--a hunter who has roamed the
forests all his life. He knows the footprint of every animal that lives
in them. I will send him into the jungle to see if there is a wild
child about; such things do occasionally happen, as our people know."
Rattam had been working hard at his English since he brought the fruit
and flowers to Mrs. Desborough, and he was an apt scholar; but he
learned it all from books. As they were speaking, a remarkable old man
entered the gardens, and approached Rattam, bowing to the ground.
*CHAPTER XI.*
_*THE FOOTPRINT.*_
"There he is!" said Rattam, waving his hand grandly. "Look at him well.
Did you ever see such eyes? He is Tara Ghur, the oldest shikaree, or
hunter, among the hills, and he does what few beside himself would dare
to do. He goes alone into the forest for days, marking the tracks of
the game, that he may know which way to lead the hunting-parties. He
was ready to start when I sent for him."
Oliver looked curiously at the wiry figure before him, so unlike the
rest of the Rana's servants. His eyes were light blue, with a piercing
glance and a flash like burnished steel. His cap and waistcloth were a
dull greeny brown, that yet approached to yellow in the sunlight. In
fact, it was so exactly the same hue as the parched and dying leaves in
the drought of summer, that when he was creeping among the bushes he
could scarcely be distinguished from them. He carried a light bamboo
over his shoulder, with a small water-pot slung at one end, and a skin
of atta, or meal, at the other. This was all the food he took with him.
His hunting-knife was in his hand, as if he had been trying its edge,
but he stuck it in his belt and lowered his rusty matchlock to do honour
to the son of his chief.
"He has the true Tartar eye," continued Rattam, "gifted with a power of
sight that can detect the smallest speck in the distance and recognize
it at once, no matter how far off it is or how queer it looks. He is
never deceived, and we have never known him make a mistake. Now tell
him what you like."
Oliver did not trust much to his own scant stock of Indi. He caught up
the ball and sent it bounding before him. This, as he expected, set off
Horace running after it, whilst Aglar called out to his bearer to pick
up his "golee."
Down tumbled Horace. Oliver pulled him up, and taking off his hat,
showed him to the shikaree. The old man surveyed him curiously.
"Child like this carried off by booraba. Search for any trace of it.
Reward sure," said Oliver, asking Rattam to repeat his words for fear
old Tara should not understand.