"Let her have her will, my lord," pleaded Tara; "we owe her much," and with a sweeping gesture she indicated the garden in which they sat and which was Chandni's special care.

The enclosure in which Ram Deen's hut stood used to be, ere the days of Tara and Chandni, the most neglected spot in the village; but, after the arrival of the latter, it gradually began to a.s.sume an appearance of neatness and thrift that made Ram Deen's home-coming a daily delight to him.

The young peepul tree in front of the hut was aflame with a gorgeous Bougain-villea, and the flower-beds laughed with marigolds and poppies of many hues sown broadcast. A little runnel sparkled through the garden, and, in one part of its career, chattered pleasantly over a tiny pebbly reach artfully contrived to produce the "beauty born of murmuring sound," which is nowhere more grateful than in the domain of the Hot Wind.

In one corner of the garden were planted radishes, and turnips, and carrots, with their delightful greenery. Chili plants and Cape gooseberries abounded, and many a potherb pleasant to behold and good in a curry. Every plant and shrub gave evidence of loving care, and repaid the tilth bestowed upon them with lavish interest.

A little machand (dais) of plastered mud, under the peepul tree, had been specially built for little Biroo, who decorated it, after the manner of the small boy, with bits of gayly-tinted gla.s.s and potsherds, bright feathers and cowries, and such other gauds as appeal to his kind.

In another corner of the compound was a tiny hut, wherein Heera Lal, Tara's old grandfather, lived in such ease and affluence as he had never dreamed of in his wildest imaginings. His day was setting in scented clouds of sweetened tobacco, and he had tyre to eat every morning. Every week he added two annas (six cents) to the h.o.a.rd under his hearth; it was saved from the allowance made to him by Ram Deen; and he owed no man anything. Moreover, in Ram Deen he had found one who could be most easily overreached, and Ram Deen delighted to be swindled by the old man in matters involving small change.

Even Hasteen had not been forgotten in the improvements made in the enclosure: in one corner a small s.p.a.ce had been carefully lepoed (plastered) and roofed with thatch for him. Farther on, Nathoo, Biroo's kid, was tethered to a stake; and beyond that the fawn, Ganda, had a little paddock to herself.

The whole compound was fenced in by a flourishing mandni hedge, which gave Ram Deen a fuller sense of possession. As he sat on the charpoi, lazily smoking his hookah and drinking in the beauty of the garden and of the day beyond, he was the happiest man in all the Terai. When Tara had finished the baby's simple toilet and put it to her breast, the thought pa.s.sed through Ram Deen's mind that, if G.o.d ever smiled, it must be when he looked on a young mother suckling her first-born.

"Respect the aged and infirm," said a whining voice, breaking in upon Ram Deen's pleasant reverie. The speaker, who stood outside the hedge, was an old mendicant equipped like his kind, with an alms-bowl containing a handful of small copper coin and cowries. He was smeared with wood ashes, and his tangled, grizzly hair hung to his waist.

"Respect the aged and poor, Ram Deen, for the sake of the beautiful babe." (Tara immediately covered it with her chudder for fear of the evil eye.) "Listen, I have tidings for thee."

"Speak, swami," replied the driver, throwing him a small piece of silver.

"Bhamaraya, the lame mehtrani, cometh this way. She is on the road on the hither side of Lal Kooah, in a covered byli whereof one of the wheels has come off. The byl-wan walked into Kaladoongie with me this morning to seek a.s.sistance, leaving the old woman on the road."

"'Tis well, jogi ji. Durga will doubtless protect her own. Salaam," said Ram Deen, dismissing the mendicant.

The time had come for the fulfilment of his promise to Bijoo. What he should do when he came across the mehtrani who had wrecked Chandni's life would doubtless be suggested to him by the circ.u.mstances of the place and the hour, but for the present he was satisfied that she was completely in his power.

That day Chandni was absent from the mid-day meal.

The Hot Wind blew fiercely, rattling the leafless branches of the forest trees. The Bore Nuddee, below the head of the ca.n.a.l that supplied Kaladoongie, had shrunk to a few scattered pools that became shallower every day.

"Nana Debi send thy kinswoman is in a cool shade this day," said Ram Deen, addressing Tara.

"She hath doubtless gone to the ford of the Bore Nuddee to bleach her new chudder," explained Tara.

But when evening came and Chandni had not returned, the driver became alarmed. After he had made his preparations for taking the mail to Lal Kooah he joined the circle in front of the Thanadar's hut.

The Hot Wind had abated its fury to little puffs that came at intervals and seemed to sear the skin, and the sun had set like a copper disk in the haze that overhung the western sky. As the hostler brought the mail-cart round, Ram Deen told the Thanadar of Chandni's absence, and received his a.s.surance that immediate search should be made for her.

As they spoke together a little puff of wind came out of the west, laden with the smell of fire. They instinctively turned their faces windwards.

The glow of the setting sun, that had but just disappeared, seemed to be returning in the west and illuminated the under surface of a huge black cloud that was growing rapidly in size.

"The jungle through which thou must drive is on fire, Ram Deen, and thou must make haste if thou wouldst take the mail to Lai Kooah to-night."

"But thou must not go to Lai Kooah to-night," said little Biroo, running up to Ram Deen. "Chandni said so ere she went away this morning. I was to tell thee, but I had forgotten till I saw just now the money she gave me for the telling of this to thee;" and opening his hand he showed the men a rupee.

"Therefore must I go, Thanadar ji," said Ram Deen. "Had this little budmash spoken sooner Chandni had been home now, and not on a quest that belongs properly to me. Toba, toba!" he exclaimed, as a tongue of flame shot high into the air, "was ever such fire lit for the purification of the jungle? But I must make haste if I would save Chandni;" and the next minute Ram Deen was speeding towards the Bore bridge. Two miles beyond the bridge they reached the hither end of the fire, which was now being driven furiously by a storm of its own creation towards the road, from which it was distant about half a mile. The hostler leaped to the ground, refusing to go any farther; but the element of danger and the risk to Chandni only stirred Ram Deen's pulses into activity, and he shook the reins and urged his horses into a headlong gallop.

The wild things of the Terai fled in front of the fire and across Ram Deen's path, heedless of the presence of man, who was but a pygmy to the wrath behind them. The roar of the giant fire put a great stress upon the fleeing animals, so that they were as of one kin in the presence of a common danger. A herd of spotted deer, with a leopard in their very midst, dashed across the road in front of the mail-cart. A wild boar came next in headlong fashion. Jackals, hares, nyl-gai followed each other pell-mell, making for the shelter of the bed of the Bore Nuddee, whilst overhead was seen the flight of the feathered denizens of the Terai.

All this confusion and rush but accented the roar of the pursuing fire.

When Ram Deen looked back for an instant he saw that it had leapt across the road at a point he had pa.s.sed but a minute before, and now he knew that he was running for his life.

A quarter of a mile farther on the road turned to the left, thus increasing his chance of reaching the southern limit of the fire, which was travelling due east. By the light of the flames he could see a tall woman sitting on the parapet of a small culvert, about one hundred yards in front of him. On the edge of the jungle beside her was an overturned byli, and from it there came the most appalling screams that could be distinguished even through the din of the fire.

The woman on the culvert saw him as soon as he turned the bend of the road, and forthwith mounted the parapet; and he saw it was Chandni. As the mail-cart swept past her she sprang towards it, and Ram Deen pa.s.sed an arm round her and drew her on to the seat beside him.

"For the love of G.o.d, Chandni, for the love of G.o.d!" screamed the woman in the byli as a burning branch fell on it. But the mail-cart sped away, and presently only the roar of the angry fire could be heard.

A quarter of a mile farther on they had pa.s.sed the southern edge of the fire, which was within fifty yards of the road when they reached safety.

"The woman in the byli?" asked Ram Deen.

"Bhamaraya," was the quiet reply.

"And why came she not forth?"

"Because of the rope that hanged Bijoo."

CHAPTER X

_Coelum, Non Animum Mutant_

The Commissioner of k.u.maon had arrived at Kaladoongie in the course of his winter tour of inspection, and the same evening Joti Prshad, his butler, sat beside the Thanadar on a charpoi and smoked with metropolitan ease amidst the awe-struck notables of the jungle village.

Ram Deen alone was not abashed, and puffed his hookah unconcernedly, although Joti Prshad told many wonderful things of the sahiblogue, and spoke concerning the doings of the great world of Naini Tal during the greater rains.

Joti Prshad was a small man, and Ram Deen's _blase_ mood galled his sense of superiority; it was but right that he should snub this exasperatingly cool villager.

"Thanadar ji," he began, "thou and I know that nowhere in Hindoostan is there such greatness a.s.sembled as at Naini Tal during the Greater Barsat."

"Men say that the governor-general still goeth to Simla, but, doubtless, the sirdar knoweth best," said Ram Deen.

"The Lat-sahib, indeed, goeth to Simla, but those with him be mere karanis (clerks), and shopkeepers, and half-castes. 'Tis plain thou hast not seen Naini Tal, coach-wan."

"The Terai sufficeth me, Joti Prshad."

"They say," piped Goor Dutt, the little bullock driver, "that the mem-sahibs at Naini Tal bare their shoulders and bosoms and dance with strange men. Toba, toba!"

This being an indisputable fact, and one to which Joti Prshad had never reconciled himself, the latter did not speak, and the diversion thus made by the byl-wan was felt by all to be in Ram Deen's favor.

Taking advantage of the silence of Joti Prshad, Ram Deen went on: "The people of Naini Tal come and go, but the children of the Terai never forget their mother. What sayest thou, Thanadar ji?"

"'Tis even so, brothers," said the Thanadar, with the gravity of one who is in authority and under the stress of weighing his words.