In the Permanent Way

A DANGER SIGNAL

They were an odd couple. The very trains as they sped past level crossing Number 57 gave a low whistle as if the oddities struck them afresh each time, and Craddock always went to the side of the cab, whence he could see those two motionless figures on either side of the regulation barrier which stood so causelessly in the middle of the sandy waste.

There must have been a road somewhere, of course, else there would have been no level crossing, but it was not visible to the passing eye. Perhaps the drifting sand had covered it up; perhaps no traffic ever did come that way, and there really was no need for old Dhunnu and his granddaughter to stand like ill-matched heraldic supporters displaying a safety signal. But they did.

They had done so ever since Dhunni--for the name had descended to her in the feminine gender--was steady enough on her feet to stand alone, and before that, even, she had given "line clear" from her grandfather's arms. For it was always "line clear." No train ever stopped at level crossing Number 57 of the desert section. Why should they? There was nothing to be seen far or near save sand, and the little square concrete-roofed, red-hot furnace of a place, suggestive of a crematorium, which happened on that particular railway to be the approved pattern for a gatekeeper's shelter.

It was very hot in summer, very cold in winter, and that was perhaps the reason why old Dhunnu suffered so much from malarial fever in the autumn months; those months which might otherwise have been so pleasant in the returning cool of their nights, and their promise of another harvest. The old man used to resent this fever in a dull sort of way, because it was so unnecessary in that rainless tract. To quiver and shake in a quartian ague when the battalions of maize are pluming themselves on their own growth, and the millet-seeds, tired of cuddling close to each other, are beginning to start on lengthening stemlets to see the world, was legitimate; but it was quite another thing to find a difficulty in keeping a signal steady when there was not a drop of moisture for miles and miles, save in the little round well which had been dug for the gatekeeper's use.

Dhunnu, however, had served the Sirkar for long years in the malarial tracts under the hills before he came as a pensioner to level crossing 57, and when once the marsh-monarch lays firm hold of a man he claims him as a subject for all time. It was this difficulty, no doubt, in keeping a signal steady which, joined to the intense pleasure it gave to the child, had first led to little Dhunni holding the green flag, while Dhunnu on the other side of the gate kept the furled red one in his shaking hand ready for emergencies. Then the train would sweep past like a great caterpillar with red and green eyes, and red and green lights in its tail, and Craddock would look out of the cab, and say to himself that time must be passing, since the child was shooting up into a girl. And still it was always the green flag; always "line clear."

It became monotonous even to Dhunni who had been brought up to it, and while her chubby hand clutched the baton firmly she would look resentfully across at the furled red flag in her grandfather's shaking hand.

"Lo! nânna," she said spitefully, "some day it will shake so that the cloth will shake itself out, and then----"

He interrupted her with dignity, but in the tone in which a tit-mouse might reproach a tiger-cat; for Dhunni, as he knew to his cost, had a temper.

"By God's blessing, oh Dhun devi, that will never be, since east and west is there no cause sufficient to check progress; and as that is by order the green flag, so the green flag it will be."

Dhunni made no reply in words. She simply flung the safety signal in the dust and danced on it with a certain pompous vigour which made the whity-brown rag of a petticoat she wore as sole garment, cease even its pretensions to be called a covering. For they were very poor, these two; that was evident from the lack of colour in their clothing, which made them mere dusty brown shadows on the background of brownish dust.

"It shall be the red one some day, nânna! Yea! some day it shall be the red flag, and then the train will stop, and then--and then," she gave one vindictive stamp to clinch the matter and walked off with her head in the air. The old man watched her retreating figure with shocked admiration, then picked up the dishonoured flag, dusted it, and rolled it up laboriously.

"Lo!" he muttered as a half-gratified smile claimed his haggard face, "she is of the very worst sort of woman that the Lord makes. A virtuous man need be prepared for such as she, so 'tis well she is betrothed to a decent house. Meanwhile in the wilderness she can come to no harm."

So far as the displaying of danger signals went, Dhunni herself was forced to admit the truth of this proposition, for even when the old man lay quivering and quaking, he kept the key of the box in which the red flag was locked, safely stowed away in his waistcloth. Once she tried to steal it, and when discovered in the act, took advantage of his prostration to argue the matter out at length,--her position being that the train itself must be as tired of going on, as she was of watching it. Whereupon he explained to her with feverish vividness the terrible consequences which followed on the unrighteous stopping of trains, to all of which she acquiesced with the greatest zest, even suggesting additional horrors, until it became a sort of game of brag between them as whose imagination would go the furthest.

Finally, as she brought him a cup of water from the well, she consoled both herself and him with the reflection that some day he must die of the fever, and then of course it would not matter to him if the train stopped or not, while she could satisfy herself as to whether those funny white people who looked out of the windows were real, or only stuffed dolls.

"Arin budzart!" he whimpered as he lay prostrate and perspiring. "Have I not told thee dozens of times they are sahib logues? have I not seen them? have I----"

"Trra," replied Dhunni derisively, "that may be. I have not, but I mean to some day."

Then the old man, adding tears of weakness to the general dissolution, begged her, if a train must be stopped, to stop a "goods," or even a "mixed." She argued this point also at length, till the fever fiend leaving him, Dhunnu resumed his authority and threatened to whack her, whereupon she ran away, like a wild thing, into the desert.

It was a certain method of escape from the slow retribution of the old man, but as often as not she would return ere his anger had evaporated sooner than miss any one of the four caterpillars with the red and green eyes and the green and red lights in their tails. They had a fascination for her which she could not resist, so she would take her whacking and then stand, bruised and sore, but brimful of curiosity, to give "line clear," as it were, to a whole world of which she knew nothing. Even that was better than having nothing to do with it at all.

And then, as her grandfather grew older and feebler, and required a longer time to fetch the week's supply from the distant hamlet far over the edge of the sandy horizon, there came at last a day when she stood all alone in the very centre of the closed gate holding out the green flag and salaaming obsequiously, for that was what grandfather had done on one or two occasions when, owing to inconceivable wickedness, she had been made to watch the passing of civilisation while tied to a distant bed leg.

Craddock from his cab noticed the grave mimicry and smiled, whereupon Dhunni smiled back brilliantly. And then something happened which curiously enough changed her whole estimate of civilisation, and left her with such an expression on her face that when her grandfather returned half an hour afterwards, his first thought was for the red flag. The key was safe in his waistcloth, yet still he began hurriedly:

"Thou didst not----"

"Nay," she burst out in fury, "I did naught. But they!--nânna, I hate them! I hate them!"

Then it turned out that the white dolls had flung a stone at her--a hard stone--yes, the pink and white child-dolls had flung a stone at her just because she had smiled. So with hands trembling with rage she produced in evidence a large chunk of chocolate.

Dhunnu looked at it in superior wisdom, for there had been white children sometimes in that surveying camp below the hills.

"'Tis no stone," he said; "'tis a foreign sweetmeat. They meant well, being ignorant that we eat not such things. When they first come across the black water they will even fling bread."

As he spoke he threw the offending morsel into the desert and spat piously. Dhunni looked after it with doubt and regret in her eyes.

"I deemed it a stone," she said at last. "Think you it would have been sweet, like our sweetmeats?"

"Ari budzart!" cried the old man again. "Lakshmi be praised thou didst take bread for a stone, else wouldst thou have eaten it and have been a lost soul."

"I would have tried if I liked it, anyhow," said Dhunni shamelessly. And that night, while her grandfather slept in the red-hot furnace to avoid the dullness of dawn, the moon found something else on the wide waste of sand, beside the crematorium and the regulation barrier, to yield her the tribute of a shadow. It was Dhunni on all fours seeking high and low for the chunk of chocolate, and when she found it she sat up with it in her little brown paws and nibbled away at it for all the world like a squirrel. The result of which experiment being that she smiled brilliantly at every train from that time forth, perhaps in hopes of more chocolate, perhaps from gratitude for past chocolate, perhaps because she really was beginning to be more sensible.

"It is being born to her in lavish manner," said old Dhunnu boastfully to an emissary of the future mother-in-law, who came as far as the village to inquire of the future bride's growth and health. "Go, tell them she gives 'line clear' as well as I do, but that she is not yet of an age for the married state."

In his heart of hearts, however, he knew very well that the time could not be far distant when he could no longer delay parting with the girl, who was fast shooting up into a tall slip of a thing. And then what should he do, for the fever fiend had a fast grip on him now--a firmer hold than he had upon life. Sometimes for days and days he could scarcely creep to the gate when the mail train passed, while, as for the "goods" and "mixed," these low-caste trains he left entirely to Dhunni's mercy; and safely, since the desire for the danger signal seemed to have passed with the possession of responsibility--and chocolate!

Thus Dhunni, far from the eyes of the world, which would have sent her remorselessly into the slavery of mother-in-law, grew tall and slender, and even in her old dust-coloured skirt and bodice caused Craddock the engine-driver, as he sped by, an occasional pang of regret as he remembered another tall girl with velvety eyes.

So time passed until, as luck would have it, a wedding-party from the village where the future mother-in-law resided chose to try a short cut over the desert, and actually crossed the line at level crossing Number 57. The result being that Dhunni's readiness for the married state became known, and a fortnight or so afterwards she sat looking at the new suit of clothes and some jewels which had been sent to her, with an intimation that the bridal procession would come for her in a week's time.

The presents were poor enough in themselves, but then Dhunni had never seen anything so bright before; except, of course, the red flag. And though the little round mirror set in the bridal thumb-ring does not allow of much being seen at a time, Dhunni saw enough to make her eyes still more velvety, her smile still more bewitching.

"Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain," grumbled her grandfather in equivalent Hindu, but it had no effect on the girl. All that day she went about with an odd half-dazed look on her face, and when the women who had brought the presents left in the afternoon, she went and sat down by the gate, feeling vaguely that it was some one else and not the old Dhunnu who was sitting there. The mail train had passed an hour before, and the "goods" was not due till midnight, so there was no chance of anything to interrupt the level monotony she knew so well, and yet, as she sat leaning against the gate-post with the green flag beside her, she was waiting for something; for what she did not know. But the certainty that life held something new was thrilling to her very finger tips.

It was a yellow sunset, full of light and peace. Then out of it came suddenly a faint roll, as of distant thunder. She was on her feet in an instant, listening, waiting. Ah! this was new, certainly. This she had never seen before. An engine with a single carriage coming full speed out of the golden west. Was she to give "line clear" to this? or----

The sound of a girl's laugh rang out into the light, and a scarlet veil, deftly twisted round a bâton, hung clear into the line.

"What in the world's the matter?" asked an English boy, as Craddock and the Westinghouse brake combined brought the final quiver to the great shining fly-wheel. He was a tall boy, fair-haired, blue-eyed, imperious. The girl had given a little gasp at the look on his face as he had leapt from the still moving train to come towards her, though she now stood looking at him boldly, the improvised signal still in her hand.

"What is it, Craddock? Ask her. You understand their lingo, I don't."

Craddock, leaning over the side of the cab, surveyed the picture with a magisterial air. "Sorry I brought 'er up, sir, tho' seein' a red rag it's kind o' second natur' when your 'and's within reach o' a brake, sir. And then she never done it before--not all these years."

"But what is it? I don't understand----"

"Saving your presence, sir," replied Craddock cheerfully, "there ain't no reason you shouldn't, for it don't take any knowledge o' the lingo, sir; no more o' any kind o' knowledge but what you're up to, sir, being, as the sayin' is, born o' Adam--o' Adam an' Eve. It's mischief, sir, that's what it is--mischief, and there ain't much difference in the colour o' that, so far as I see, sir."

The boy's face showed nothing but angry, almost incredulous, surprise for an instant, then something else crept into it, softening it. "By George! Craddock," he said argumentatively, "I'd no notion they could look--er--like that. She is really quite a pretty girl." He could not help a smile somehow; whereat, to his surprise, she smiled back at him, the deliberately bewitching smile born of that chunk of chocolate. It recalled him to a sense of injured importance.

"This is most annoying, and when so much depends on my catching up the mail," he continued. "She will be stopping the next train too, I suppose; but it can't be allowed, and she ought to be punished. I'll take her along and leave her at the first station for inquiry, they can easily send another signaller by the down train. Tell her, Craddock."

"Better pukro 'er 'ath,^[47] sir," remarked the latter sagely as he prepared to descend, "else she might 'oof it into the wilderness like one of them ravine deer. Just you pukro 'er 'ath, sir, while I samjhaó^[48] her."

Dhunni, however, did not attempt to run, she only shrank a little when the boy's white hand closed on hers. After that she stood listening to Craddock's violent recriminations quite calmly. In truth she expected them, for in those old games of brag with nânna they had gone further than words, up to hanging in fact. Yet still not so far as this queer tremor of half-fearful, half-joyful expectation. That was new, but pleasant, and filled her eyes with such light that Craddock stroked his corn-coloured beard and shook his head mournfully.

"She's a deal 'arder than I took 'er for, seein' her always as it were, sir, from a different sp'eer. A deal worse. If I'd a pair o' bracelets ready they might give 'er a turn, but I've told 'er she'll go to 'ell in every lingo I know, for fear she mightn't understand, and I'm blest if she care a hang."

The boy gave a resentful laugh.

"I'll make her care before I've done with her. There! you there!--what's your name?--stick her with you into the cook room. No; shove her into my carriage and I'll do chowkidar^[49] till I can hand her over. Now, Craddock, on with the steam or I shall miss my connection. Confound the girl!"

It was easy to confound her in the abstract; easy also to glower at the offender crouched in the off corner before you threw yourself into the arm-chair in the other and began to read the last number of a magazine by the waning light. But what was to be done when it was gradually being borne in on you that a pair of velvety eyes, wild as a young deer's, were watching you fearlessly. She was a good plucked one, at any rate. Craddock had said she was as hard as nails and a bad lot. Well, he ought to know; but she did not look bad, not at all. The eyes were good eyes, full of straightforward curiosity, nothing more. There she was bending down to try the texture of the carpet with her finger, as if nothing had occurred--the little monkey--and what white teeth she had when she met his involuntary smile with another.

After that, under cover of his book, he watched her furtively. It was what is called an inspection carriage, a regular room on wheels, and the boy, new to the honour and glory of such a thing, had hung pictures on its walls, curtains to its windows. There was even a vase of flowers beside the newly lit lamp on the centre table. The lamp had a pink shade too, which threw a rosy light on everything, above all on that slender figure crouching in the far corner. And outside the golden sunset was fast fading into cold greys.

"You want to know what that is," he said suddenly, in English, laying down his book and pointing in the direction where her eyes had been fixed. An expectant look came to them, and he stood for a moment irresolute. Then he rose with an impatient shrug of his shoulders, crossed to the small harmonium which lay open, set his foot to the pedal and struck a single note. She drew back from the sound just, he thought, as she had drawn back from his hand, and then looked at him as she had looked at him then. By Jove! she had eyes!

Still looking at her he sat down to the instrument and played a chord or two out of sheer curiosity. Her finger went up to her lip, she leaned forward, a picture of glad surprise. And then a sudden fancy seized him. He had a tenor voice, and there was a song upon the desk. Singing in a train, even in a single carriage on a smooth line, was a poor performance, but it would be fun to try.

"The Devout Lover," of all songs in the world! The humour, the bitter irony of it struck him keenly and decided him. And as he sang he felt with a certain anger that he had never sung it better--might never sing it so well again.

When he turned to her again it struck him that she recognised this also, for she was leaning forward half on her knees, her hands stretched out over the seat. No one could have listened more eagerly.

In sudden petulance he rose and went to the window. There was only a bar of gold now on the horizon, and, thank Heaven! they had come faster than he thought--or he wasted more time in tomfoolery--for they were already entering the broken ground. That must be the first ravine, dark as a ditch; so ere long he would be able to get rid of those curious eyes. Powers above! Was fate against him? Was he never to arrive at his destination? And what did Craddock mean by putting the brake hard on again when they were miles away even from a level crossing? He was out on the footboard as they slackened, shouting angry inquiries long before Craddock's voice could possibly come back to him through the lessening rattle.

"Danger signal comin' down the line. On a trolly, I think, sir. Somethin's wrong."

Apparently there was, and yet the English voice which sang out of the darkness had a joyful ring of triumph in it, and the friendly hand which followed the voice, after a minute or two, shook the boy's hand amid warm congratulations on the narrowest escape; for no one had thought it could possibly be done, or that warning could possibly be given in time. It was the veriest piece of luck! Briefly, just after the mail had passed, a big culvert had given not two miles further down the line. They had telegraphed the information both ways of course, though, as no train was due for hours, there was plenty of time for repairs. Then had come the return wire, telling of the boy's start to overtake the mail on urgent business. Every one had said it was too late; and, after all, it had been a matter of five minutes or less. The veriest luck indeed! If they had been five minutes earlier ...

The boy looked solemnly at Craddock, and the light of the red lamp, dim as it was, showed a certain emotion in both faces.

"That's about it, sir," said Craddock, a trifle huskily. "An' I tellin' her she'd go to 'ell! Lordy! ain't it like a woman to have the last word?"

He said no more then, but when it had been decided to return the way they had come, and take a branch line farther down, and when the trolly with its red signal had slipped back silently into the night, he came and stood at the carriage door for a moment. And as he looked at the figure crouching contentedly in the corner, he stroked his beard thoughtfully again, and went on as if no interval had come between his last words and his present ones.

"But she saved our lives, sir, by stoppin' us, that's what she done, sure as my name's Nathaniel James, and when a girl done that, a man's got nothin' left but, as the sayin' is, to act fair an' square by her--fair an' square."

"Just so, Craddock," replied the boy, with a queer stiffness in his voice. "We'll drop her at the gate again, and--and it shall be just--just as if it--as if it hadn't happened." Then he added in a lower voice, "Spin along as fast as you can, man, and let's have done with it."

"I won't leave her a hounce for a whistle, sir," said Craddock laconically.

So the carriage with the rosy light streaming through the windows shot forth into the darkness in front, and the sparks from the engine drifted into the darkness behind, and the roar and the rush drowned all other sounds. Perhaps Craddock whistled in the cab to make up for not being able to whistle on his engine. Perhaps the boy sang songs again in the carriage because he could not speak to the girl. Anyhow, they were both silent when the fly-wheel quivered into rest once more beside level crossing Number 57.

"Stop a bit," said a rather unsteady voice as a girl's figure paused against the rosy light of the open door. "It's too long a step. I'll lift you down."

Craddock, looking over the side, turned away and gave a sympathising little cough as if to cover some slighter sound. Perhaps he knew what would have happened if he had been in the boy's place.

The next instant, some one sprang into the cab and turned the steam hard on, some one with a half-pained, half-glad look on his face.

"Now then, Craddock, right we are!"

And Craddock, as he bent to look at the indicator, answered, "Right it is, sir; fair and square. Full pressure and no mischief come of it."

"I hope not," said the boy softly; "but it is a bit hard to know--to know what is fair and square--with--with some people."

Perhaps he was right; for Dhunni stood gazing after the red and green lights with a dazed look on her face. The danger signal had come into her life--the train had stopped, and then--and?

AMOR VINCIT OMNIA

This story began and ended in a public library. An odd, forlorn little offshoot of progress, dibbled out beyond the walls of a far-away Indian city, which drowsed through the sunny to-day as it had drowsed through many a century of sunny yesterdays. True it is that in a certain mimetic and superficial manner Poorânâbad had changed with the changing years. It had evolved a municipal committee, and this in its turn had given birth to various simulacra of civilisation; but in effect the former was but the old council of elders in modern guise, and the latter but Jonah's gourd, springing up in a day or a night at the bidding of some minor prophet from over the seas. They came and went, these minor prophets, each with his theory, his hobby; and even when Poorânâbad knew them no more, it could remember its rulers by the libraries and band-stands, the public gardens, the schools, and the museums they had left behind them.

The library itself stood in the midst of a newly laid-out public garden, which but two summers before had been a most evil-smelling tank--at least, for nine months of the year; the remaining three found it a shining lake flushed with fresh rain and carpeted with pink lotus blossom. But culture of all sorts had stepped in with drainpipes, bricks, mortar, flowers, and books, and the result was a maze of winding walks, stubbly grass, and stunted bushes gathered round a square stuccoed building of one room encircled by an arched verandah. To east and south the deceptive walls and flat mud roofs of the native city looked like towers against the sky. To west and north stood avenues of shìshum trees, with here and there a peep of the white bungalows wherein the minor prophets dwelt and grew gourds.

Within, under the one roof hung with two punkahs, stood two tables, the one littered with English magazines and illustrated papers, the other bare, save for a few leaflets of the native press, with high-sounding names and full of still more lofty sentiments. The two bookcases, one at each end of the room, showed the same well-intentioned, but unsuccessful, impartiality; for the eastern one was nearly empty, while the western overflowed, chiefly with novels; a dozen shelves of them to one of miscellaneous literature, made up for the most part of works on the Central Asian question and missionary reports. The novels, however, had a solid appearance, since most of them had been re-bound by the district-office bookbinder in the legal calf and boards which he used also for the circulars and acts by which India is governed.

Before this bookcase stood the only occupant of the room, a tall weedy boy of about fifteen. A boy with remarkably thin legs, somewhat of a stoop in his narrow shoulders, and a supple brown finger travelling slowly along the ill-spelt titles of the book; ill spelt, because the Government bookbinder could hardly be expected to grapple successfully with the title of a modern novel. The hesitations of this brown finger might have served as an index to the owner's taste, and showed a distinct leaning towards sentiment. It lingered over several suggestive titles, until it finally settled on something writ large in three volumes. After which the boy, crossing to a double desk midway between the tables, wrote in the English register in a fine bold hand any clerk might have envied:

Amor Vincit Omnia. Govind Sahai, Kyasth.

So, with two volumes under his arm, and one held close to his soft, short-sighted black eyes, Govind Sahai, of the tribe of Kyasths, or scribes, made his way citywards down one of the winding paths. Thus strolling along he was typical of the great multitude of Indian boys of his age. Boys who read--great heavens! what do they not read, with their pale intelligent faces close to the lettering? And their thoughts?--that is a mystery.

Govind Sahai's face was no exception to the rule; it was young, yet old; high-featured, yet gentle; the ascetic hollows in the temples belied by the long sweeping curves in the mouth, and both these features neutralised by the feminine oval of the cheek. He was the only son of a widow, who, thanks to his existence, led a busy and contented life in her father-in-law's otherwise childless house; for the honours of motherhood in India are great. Yet she was poor beyond belief to Western ears. Across the black water, in a Christian country, such poverty would have meant misery, but in the old simplicity of Poorânâbad the little household managed to be happy; above all, in its hopes for the future, when Govind's education should be over, and he be free to follow his hereditary trade as a writer. His father had found his ancestral level, oddly enough, in compiling sanitary statistics in an English office, until the cholera added one to the mortality returns by carrying him off as a victim; after which all the interest of life to the inhabitants of the little courtyard and slip of roof which Govind called home centred in the clever boy, who could only follow his father's trade if he succeeded in gaining the necessary pass; for education has undermined heredity. So Govind worked hard for the scholarship which would enable him to go to college. Day after day he absorbed an amount of information which was perfectly prodigious. Month after month found him further and further adrift on the sea of knowledge. Even in play-time he gorged himself on new ideas, as might be seen by the library register. It was not only Amor Vincit Omnia which showed on its pages, but many another similar work:

And so on down one column and up another, for the boy read fast.

On this particular hot, dusty May morning he became so interested in his last book that he sat down on the parapet of the city's central sewer, and twining one thin leg round the other plunged headlong into a sentimental scene between two lovers, heedless of his unsavoury environments. The interweaving of intellectual emotion and material sensation pictured on the page seemed to this boy, just verging upon manhood, to be an inspiration, lifting the whole subject into a new world of pure passion. It appealed, as a matter of fact, though he knew it not, both to his inherited instincts and his acquired ideas, thus satisfying both.

"My darling" said Victor, raising her sweet face to his, and pressing a kiss on those pure, pale lips, "love such as ours is eternal. Earth has no power"--et cætera, et cætera, et cætera. The tears positively came into his eyes; he seemed to feel the touch of those lips on his, making him shiver.

The little soft tendrils of her hair stirred with his breath as Una, shrinking to his side, whispered, "I am not afraid when I am with you, my king. I feel so strong! so strong to maintain the Right! Strong to maintain our Love before all the world! For Love is of Heaven, is it not, dear heart?" "Our Love is," murmured Victor, once more raising her pure, pale---- Et cætera, et cætera, et cætera.

Yes, it was very beautiful, very exalting; also very disturbing to this inheritor of a nature built on simpler, more direct lines. That ancestral past of his seemed brutally bald beside this highly decorated castle of chivalry.

"Aha! Good evening, pupil Govind," broke in the accurate voice of Narayan Chand, head master of the district school. "You have, I am glad to see, availed yourself of advantages of public library. With what mental pabulum have you provided yourself this summer's eve?"

As he spoke, he seated himself likewise on the parapet of the sewer, and read over the boy's shoulder, Amor Vincit Omnia. Then his spectacled glance travelled down the page, returning for comfort to the title; that, at least, smacked of learning. "Ah, aha! I see. Light literature. Good for colloquial, and of paramount use in vivâs. So far, well. For superiority of diction, nevertheless, and valuability to grammar studies, give me Tatler, Spectator, and such classics."

Govind closed his book in most unusual irritation. "Even in English literature, master-ji, new things may be better than old."

"Of that there is no possible doubt," quoted master-ji, with cheerful gravity. He was a most diligent reader of the English papers, and used to sit at the library table for hours of an evening devouring the critiques on Gilbert's or Tennyson's last with undiscriminating absorption in the formation and style of the sentence. His quotations were in consequence more various than select. "Of that there can be no possible probable manner of doubt, as a modern poet puts it tersely," he repeated, tilting his embroidered smoking-cap farther from his forehead and drawing the black alpaca tails of his coat round his legs; "yet still, for all that, it is held, that--to speak colloquially--for taking the cake of scholarship the classics----"

Govind Sahai put his feet to the ground and the first volume under his arm.

"Master-ji, when one labours long days at cube roots, then classics in the evening become excessive. Life is not all learning; life is love also."

He was quoting from the book he had been reading.

"Sits the wind in that quarter," began Narayan sagely; then he looked at the boy reflectively and changed manner and language. "That brings to memory, my son," he said in Hindustani. "When comes thy wedding procession? I must speak to the virtuous widow that it come in vacation time, so as not to interfere with study."

A sullen indifference was on Govind's face.

"You need not fear, master-ji; I mean to have the scholarship. The wedding will make no difference."

Narayan Chand smiled a superior smile.

"Nay, my son; it must--it should--for a time. So is the vacation convenient. Thou canst return to school when the festal season is over. Come, I will speak to thy relations even now."

The widow was sifting wheat. A pleasant-faced little dump of a woman, with dimples on her bare brown arms.

"Mother," said Govind calmly, "is grandfather in? The master-ji' hath come about my wedding."

"What have men to say to such things?" she answered, with a shrill laugh; "go tell master--ji, heart of mine eyes, that it is settled for the first week of vacation. Her people were here but now. Hurri hai! but I shall laugh and cry to see thee! There shall be nothing wanting at all! Flowers and sweets and merriment. Thy granny and I have toiled and spun for it. And the bride sweeter than honey. Fie! Govind, be not shy with thy mother! Think of the bride she gives thee, and tell her thou art happy."

She flung her arms round her tall son, kissing him and plying him with questions till he smirked sillily.

"Happy enough, mother," he admitted, then felt Amor Vincit Omnia under his arm, and sighed. "I would much rather not be married; at least, I think not. Oh, mother, I would she had fair hair and blue eyes!"

"Lakshmi! hear him! Wouldst marry a fright, Govind? Wait the auspicious moment; wait till I lift the veil. Oh, the beauty! fresh from the court of Indra, wheat-coloured and languishing with jewels and love."

Govind shook his head.

"Profane not the great name of Love." He quoted to himself, being forced to this secrecy by the fact that the only language his mother understood has no word for love--as he meant it. So he added mournfully, "I am ready for my duty whenever you wish it, mother; that is enough."

Nevertheless, he dreamt dreams that night as he lay curled up on his short string bed, with the second volume of Amor Vincit Omnia under the quilt, so as to be ready for the early summer dawn. Out under the stars in the bare, mud-walled courtyard, destitute to Western eyes of all comfort, he dreamt the dreams of his race--of a gorgeously attired bride, shy, yet alluring, looking at him for the first time.

"Thou hast a nightmare," said his mother crossly, when just before daybreak he woke them all by sitting up in his bed and declaiming, Amor vincit Omnia in a loud voice. "'Tis that book under thy head. Put it aside, and lie as thy forefathers lay; they dreamt not of pillows. So shalt thou sleep sound and let others sleep also."

She went yawning back to bed, and lay awake till dawn brought work, counting over the savings she had made, and calculating how much she could spare for flowers and sweets and spiced dishes, for all the hitherto unknown luxuries which, according to custom, were to make the boy's life a dream of pleasure for a time. Only for a time, since the scholarship had to be gained.

A month afterwards a red-curtained bridal palanquin containing a mysterious bride was carried over the threshold of the little mud courtyard, and Govind Sahai, with a silver triptych on his forehead, his ears tasselled with evil-smelling marigolds, his scented tinsel coat hung with jasmine chaplets, dismounted from a pink-nosed pony amidst an admiring crowd. That was an end of the spectacle as far as the outside world was concerned. Within it was only beginning for those two fond women who had spun and scraped and saved for this great occasion ever since the bridegroom was five years old. Much had to be done ere they would sit down in proud peace knowing that no possible enhancement of delight had been omitted. The boy himself went through the countless ceremonies, all tending towards an apotheosis of the senses, with a certain shy dignity; perhaps the sight of master-ji doing wedding guest in a copper-coloured alpaca coat gave him confidence by reminding him that even the learned stoop to folly. He was pale, partly from the turmeric baths, which are supposed to produce a complexion favourable to feminine eyes, partly because he really felt sick after the unusual sloth and sweets of the last few days. So much for his physical state. Of his mental condition this much may be presaged: that if either his inherited instincts or his acquired convictions had any reality whatever, it must have been chaos.

More chaotic than ever when, far into the night, after endless tests and trials, Nihâli, the mysterious bride, proved beautiful as----as----?

Well, the fact was sure; only the comparison remained doubtful. The inherited instincts said a peri, the acquired convictions an angel. Both, it will be observed, denizens of another world. But then there are more "other worlds" than one.

* * * * *

"Master Narayan Chand hath sent to remind us that school re-opens next week," said Govind's mother when nigh two months had passed; two months during which the path of life had been smoothed, scented, and decorated for the special use of a boy and a girl. Govind Sahai looked up from his work, which was, briefly, holding Nihâli's slim, ring-bedecked fingers. The fact that he did so on pretence of teaching her to write is of secondary importance. She was undoubtedly a very pretty girl, and her delicate, refined face was at that moment full of adoring tenderness for the lad beside her. Not thirteen at the most, she was taller than English girls of that age, but far more slender, with a figure still following the straight lines of childhood. Graceful for all that, since her small head poised well over a round throat, and the want of contour was dexterously hidden by masses of jewellery, gleaming through the tinsel-shot veil. Even from wrist to elbow the thinness of the arm was concealed by the bridal bracelets of white ivory lined with red, whilst the slender ankles beneath the scarlet, gold-bordered petticoat were hung with silver-gilt jingles.

A typical bride briefly, arrayed in all attractions, save for the big nose-ring, with its dangling golden spoon hiding the lip. Govind objected to its presence, his mother to its absence--both, curiously enough, for the same reason--because it served as a check to indiscriminate kissing of the bride. The pious widow used to blush over her son's habit of saying good-bye to his wife when he had to leave her for an hour or two. It might be English fashion, warranted by all the love-literature in creation; it was not decent. Neither did she approve of seeing them, as now, seated together over that ridiculous farce of pothooks. Marriage was one thing, love-making was another, so she spoke sharply.

"Well," answered the boy, utterly unabashed, "dost think I have forgotten, amma jan? (Mother dear.) Nay! Nihâli hath been hearing my holiday task half the morning. Hast not--O Nihâli?"

His arm, under cover of the veil, stole round the girl's waist and remained there--a flagrant breach of decorum which, fortunately for the female accomplice, remained unnoticed by mother-in-law, who was busy over a knot in a thread she was skeining from her unending pirn. Yet Nihâli, despite this awful lapse, looked sweet and good enough to fill the heroine's part in any novel, and her looks did not belie her. The past two months had been a fever of delight to Govind. With the curious apathetic resignation to the limitations of custom so noticeable in clever Indian lads whose brains are full of theories, he had accepted marriage in the spirit of his forebears, only to find that Love (with a big L) such as he had read of in books was actually within his reach. To be sure, in books the object was chosen by the lover; but what did that matter in the end? So he used up all the stock-in-trade of the sentimental novelist for little Nihâli's benefit, and she listened to his rhapsodies on perfect marriage and twin souls, her eyes set wide with wonder, admiration, and belief. No "first lady" in white satin could have played her part more prettily than this Indian child of thirteen, who from her cradle had been taught to venerate her husband as a god, and who now, in a sort of rapture, found herself the object of a sentimental passion absolutely novel and bewildering. She nestled her sleek head on his shoulder, telling him that she believed every word he said. And so she did; had he told her the world was flat, instead of explaining to her with great pomp and precision that she was living on an orange depressed at the poles, it would have been the same to her. The world she lived in was of his creating. Like most Hindu girls of the higher classes, she had a marvellous memory, and Govind had hardly known whether to be pleased or pained at the discovery that, after hearing him read it over a few times, she knew his repetition better than he did himself; yet, shy of her own exploit, she only replied to his laughing reference to the holiday task by a timid squeeze of the hand still holding hers.

Mother-in-law broke the knot with a snap; a habit with the determined little woman, who thereinafter would twirl the ends together as if nothing had happened. One twist of the thumb, and all was as it had been.

"I know not what holiday tasks may mean," she said scornfully. "In my time work was work, and play play. So must it be now. Nihâli's people have sent to ask when she returns to them, after established custom. I have answered, 'When school begins.'"

They had been so supremely, so innocently happy over their pothooks! And now the consternation on their two young faces was quite piteous. Mother-in-law, however, found it scandalous. Did not all decent girls cry to go home long before the honeymoon was over? Had not she herself wept bitterly in her time; and there was Nihâli actually snivelling at the idea of leaving; before her husband, too! And Govind was no better.

"It is so soon," pleaded the boy, too much taken aback for instant revolt; besides, the situation had never come into any of the novels he had read, so he really felt unable to cope with it.

His remark only increased the pitch of his mother's voice. Soon, was it? Had he not had two months of billing and cooing, to gain which she and grannie had spun their fingers to the bone? Soon! Whose fault was it if time had been wasted over alphabets and pothooks? Her shrill tones brought grannie from her labours below, and before these two eminently respectable matrons the guilty pair could only hold each other's hands like the babes in the wood, feeling lost and miserable.

That afternoon he went over to the public library, for the first time since his marriage, and spent hours hunting up precedents on the subject, only to return discomfited and hopeless. Nihâli would revolt, of course, if he bade her follow his lead; but how could he bear to have the finger of scorn pointed at her by those unacquainted with the theory of perfect marriage and twin souls? That night, when the rest of the little household retired from the roof, leaving the luxury of fresh air to the younger people, he and Nihâli sat down under the stars on the still flower-strewn bed, and cried like the children they were.

So with awful swiftness the dawn came when Govind had to put on the pale-pink turban proclaiming him a first-class middle student, and set off to school with his books under his arm; books, on the whole, less disturbing than Amor Vincit Omnia and its congeners. Nothing further had been said about Nihâli's approaching departure. It was inevitable, of course; meanwhile, they must make the most of the time left to them. So Govind looked haggard and feverish as he took his accustomed place; nevertheless, being student by nature, the work beguiled him. By evening he was lighthearted enough to run home and race up the crumbling stairs leading to the roof, full of anecdotes and news for Nihâli. There was no one to receive them. The roof itself had resumed its normal workaday appearance, and in the very place where the little bride had sat on her lacquered bridal stool, squatted his mother, piecing two broken strands of her skein together as if nothing had happened. And nothing out of the common had happened. Whose fault was it if Govind flung himself on his face and wept like a baby for what was beyond his reach?

His mother had expected so much when she planned her coup d'état. But he continued to cry--which she did not expect; for something more complex than simple passion had been aroused in the boy. Of that he might have been ashamed; in this he gloried. Was it not, in short, a legitimate subject for self-glorification? So he wept himself sick in a subdued docile sort of way. Finally, master-ji called one day in consternation to say that, though painstaking as ever, poor Govind could not remember the simplest problem; while as for riders, he just sat and looked at them. The scholarship was thus in danger. She tried scolding the boy in good set terms, but he met her reproaches with an invulnerable superiority before which she stood aghast. What was to be done? Perhaps this spiriting away of the bride in order to avoid a scene had been an error, but was that any reason why she should be requested to return? To begin with, it would be an appalling breach of etiquette, and then there was the risk of consequences much to be deprecated between such very young people. The whole household, including master-ji, puzzled over the difficulty, which seemed all the more puzzling because it was so uncalled for, boys having been married at fifteen and sent to school again afterwards since time began without any fuss. But then, those boys, had not read Amor Vincit Omnia and learnt to mix sentiment with passion.

While matters were at this deadlock, Nihâli's mother arrived on the scene unexpectedly, and, en petit comité with the women-folk, gave a new turn to affairs. The possibility suggested was in a measure disconcerting, but, on the other hand, afforded Govind's mother an opportunity of retreating with dignity, since the girl must not be allowed to fret as she had been fretting.

The result being that a week afterwards Govind Sahai did a difficult rider in a way which made Narayan Chand dream dreams of a future when folk would say, "This eminent man received primary and secondary education at the hands of our most successful teacher of youth, Pundit Narayan Chand." It was a dream he frequently indulged in about his pupils.

The little strip of roof was once more frequented by pigeons, and the snappings and joinings of threads relegated for the most part to the court below. Yet the boy's appetite did not return, and as winter came on he developed a teasing cough in that narrow chest of his. The fact was that he burnt the candle of life at both ends in more ways than one. Perhaps if his soul could have been left in peace he might have passed through the ordeal safely, as many a boy manages to do in India. But it was not. Poor Govind had no rest. He strung himself up to the highest pitch in obedience to the mixed result of his birth and education. Then on this quivering instrument he proceeded to play scales. It was Tausig's exercises on a zither. He had to teach himself, teach Nihâli, think of the coming baby, and go through the whole gamut of intellectual and physical emotion of which he had read. The first string gave way when his mother, laughing, crying, and blessing him all in a breath, put a boy baby into his arms on his return from school one day. He sat down stupidly on the lowest step of the mud stairs, gazing at what he held in a sort of bewildered amaze at finding himself thus, till his mother angrily snatched the child from him, saying he should be ashamed of shedding tears on a newborn baby's face. It was very like Nihâli, he thought, only years older with all those wrinkles. Then he thought helplessly how he had decided, with Nihâli's consent of course, on a thousand contraventions of old customs at this time. Yet there was she upstairs in the hands of the wise women, and the baby ready to be doctored by its grandmother. What could a boy of sixteen do against such odds? So the little proselytising pamphlet he had read was put away with a sigh; and after all Nihâli did very well under the old régime. He found her, when the wise women permitted him, in the seventh heaven over the baby. Was there ever such a doll, with its little sharp nose and pinched-up lips! And would he believe it?--the tiny creature was so lazy that grandmother had to tickle it so--on the mouth--before it would take any interest in the sugar and spices! By and by, when she could nurse it herself, it would be different. She lay smiling at the idea, while downstairs, as they left the house, the gossips were shaking their heads and saying calmly, "It is an unnecessary baby, but a forerunner. Others will come. There is plenty of time."

Even when Nihâli could not nurse the child, and they had recourse to a Maw's feeder, which Govind, with many blushes, bought at the same shop which supplied him with slate pencils, those two young things feared nothing. He used to bring his books to the roof where she lay with the little quiet mouse of a thing tucked away in her veil. Then, while the sun set red over the dusty city, he worked away at all the "ologies"--worked somewhat feverishly, since more depended now on his success. Sometimes Nihâli's smile gurgled over in laughter, and Govind, looking up, would find baby's fingers being clasped round his pen.

"Look you," she would whisper, as if in presence of some great potentate, "I asked my lord if he wished to be a writer too, and see how fast he holds!"

There was one thing, however, to which the baby did not hold fast, and that was life. But not till the very day before the eventful examination, which meant so much to Govind, did those two children read fear in each other's faces about that other child.

"Oh, Govind! what shall we do? what shall we do?" wailed Nihâli, when the grandmother, seeing them wild with anxiety, told them the truth, while the great-grandmother stood by wagging her head and mumbling of others by and by. What was that to them now? How he got through the next day he never knew. He took the papers and went with them to his desk; nay, more, he did his level best with them, nerving himself to the effort chiefly by thoughts of master-ji's disappointment if he failed. But his personal interest in the matter seemed gone; that was centred on a roof in the dusty city where one child sat crying over another. What were plus or minus to him save a world with or without an unnecessary infant?

All that night was passed beside Nihâli, waiting for his mother's voice to say the end had come; but the morning found the little sleeper still in the young mother's arms. Perhaps there was still hope. He hastily swallowed some breakfast, and, delayed by this hint of respite, found himself five minutes late in the examination-room. The first papers had already been given out, and to avoid possibility of fraud none save those present at the issue were allowed to compete. So Govind had to sit idle for a while, knowing he had lost a definite number of chances. Nor was this the worst; the pause gave him time for thought. Hitherto, once within the familiar walls, old habits of attention and forgetfulness had possessed him. Now, with nothing to do, he remembered and yet forgot. So when the order to go up for the second paper came he rose with his brain in a whirl, a wild desire to cry, "Let me alone, my baby is dying!" seeming to blot out everything else in the world. Perhaps had he done so he might have had a chance in the examiners' human pity; as it was he pulled himself together, and failed hopelessly.

In the pause before the vivâ voce he sat looking straight before him, dully conscious that he had done badly.

"Govind has never been the same since he married," whispered one boy, and the other giggled.

"Silence!" cried Narayan Chand fussily. "Govind Sahai, your name is first for vivâ. Come up, Govind Sahai, Kyasth." Then, as the dull yet anxious face passed him, he whispered: "Now for value of light literature. You are best at colloquial, my pupil, so courage, and remember Amor Vincit Omnia and such like things."

Amor Vincit Omnia! The boy's last chance fled before those words. When the ordeal was over, he turned back to his place mechanically. As he passed the master-ji once more, he read his fate in the disappointed face raised to his, then in the confident smile of the boy succeeding him, finally in the surprised nudging of the whole class. Something seemed to snap in his brain; he paused, and, facing the examiners, raised his hand. The rush of thought was too much for him at first; then he broke silence in a gentle, deprecating voice: "If you will be kind enough to excuse me, Sirs, I will beg leave to retire. The exigencies of the case forbid explanation, but this much is admitted--that Amor vincit Omnia."

"That boy speaks better English than I thought for," said one examiner to the other, when the leave had been granted. "Give him five marks more; he's failed, of course, but it's as well to be just."

When Govind reached home Nihâli's arms were empty. There is no need to say more. It was an unnecessary infant to all save those two.

"You have failed, failed badly, my poor pupil, owing, doubtless, to domestic bereavement," said the master-ji, when he called a week or two later full of vexed sympathy. "Such circumstances point to special privilege of entering again next year, for which we will apply. And then, Govind, there must be no killing of birds with one stone. There must be no complicated states of mind, confusing idiom."

But Govind Sahai, Kyasth, did not avail himself of the permission duly given, as the pundit-ji put it, "in consideration of the strictly nonregulation death of his infant at a premature age."

The old grandfather, whose small life-pension had been the prop of the household, died of autumnal fever, and during the ensuing winter the result of his failure to win the scholarship came home to Govind with depressing force, since even from that poor ten rupees a month something might have been spared to stand between those three fond women and the grindstone, that last resort of poverty. Then Nihâli's mother, coming over unexpectedly and finding her daughter at the mill, carried her off in a huff. This time Govind said nothing; the spirit had gone out of him, and for the girl's own sake he gave in to custom. He worked very hard, but as the winter advanced his shoulders seemed to grow narrower and narrower, and the teasing cough became louder. Good food, care, and rest might have done something perhaps; only perhaps, for there is not much to be done when the candle of life is alight at both ends, except to put it out. That is what happened one April morning when the bougainvillea round the arched verandah of the library looked like a crimson drapery. He used to go there every morning before school hours, for the memory of his failure in vivâ voce rankled keenly, and he was possessed by a curious determination to prove Master Narayan Chand wrong in attributing it to Govind's unwise selection of books. So, secure at those hours from interruption, he used to sit and study the idiom of light literature.

"Thou art not fit to go," said his mother tearfully one morning after the boy had been kept awake all night by cough and fever.

"Reading will not hurt me, amma jan," he replied, "and the examination is next month."

They found him two hours afterwards seated at the desk before the ledger, his head resting on a novel he had just been entering in the register. A horrible stain of blood from the blood-vessel he had ruptured blotted the page, but through it you could still see, in his bold handwriting:

Amor Vincit Omnia. Govind Sahai, Kyasth.