On an afternoon in the early days of the British occupancy of India, Blackmore-Sahib sat alone at the big desk in his study, in his hand a report which had just reached him from one of his districts. At his elbow the tea tray was untouched, although at this hour of the afternoon he was usually stretched out in a rattan chair in the living-room with the punkah swinging over him, the latest magazine, three months old at that, in his hand, and the tea tray already replaced on the small table beside his chair by the cigar service holding cigarettes all neatly rolled ready for his match. It was not because the report was urgent that he had forsaken his accustomed ease to prove it up; nor was it that he was particularly interested in the task, for apparently he was forcing himself to go over the lines of type and up and down the columns of figures. As his pencil reached the bottom of a column it would almost drop from his listless fingers until, with a start, he would begin upon the next row as if in great haste.
The bearer, entering the room noiselessly, saw the untouched tea tray standing just as he had left it a half hour before and looked anxiously at his master's face. But without disturbing his master he removed it and turned to the side table where stood the tobacco service. Not a cigarette was rolled! He clumsily attempted to prepare some but none of his efforts were really successful. However, he put several bulky ones in a saucer and placed them near his master's hand. Still in silence but with many backward glances at the man bending over the slowly-moving pencil, the boy left the room.
As the boy closed the door, the man dropped the pencil upon the desk, put his hand to his head for a second, and then arose. He walked to the door into the living-room and seemed to listen for an instant; then he went back to the desk.
The servant, evidently having heard his master's step, entered with fresh tea and toast.
"Is she better?"
As the boy set the tray down he replied hesitatingly, "No, Sahib, she is still groaning."
"You fool, don't you suppose I can hear that? She has groaned incessantly since last night."
"What can I do?" The man asked the question of himself as he turned half around towards the veranda door.
"Won't the Sahib have some tea?" suggested the boy timidly, for like every native-born this man feared his stalwart English master.
Blackmore-Sahib held out his hand without turning back from the door. "Yes, I will take a cup. Perhaps it will steady me a bit."
"Poor little Nona!" he sighed as he took the cup.
He gulped down the tea hurriedly and reached for a cigarette. But as his eyes fell on the clumsy ones in the saucer, they filled with tears and he walked quickly out upon the veranda without taking one.
Up and down he paced unheeding the streaks of sunshine which found their way in through the vines and fell upon his unprotected head.
"Poor Nona! Poor little girl!" he groaned. How skillfully she had always rolled his cigarettes, just to his taste! how daintily she had served his cup of tea! and how quietly she had sat every afternoon beside him, never disturbing his nap or reading! "Poor little Nona!" he sighed, for she might never sit beside him again. He could hear her groans now from the bedroom at the other side of the great living-room. Pitiable, heart-breaking little groans they were! He could not trust himself even to go to the door and look in upon her.
And yet he did not really love her. Nona had made Blackmore-Sahib's life very comfortable for the last ten years and he could not bear to think that she was suffering and probably would die. He did not want to lose his little Indian wife and her affectionate care for him, though of course she was his "wife" only according to the customs of many white men in dark lands. As he paced up and down he remembered how, when he had been sent by the government to this city in the heart of India away from every European association, he had rebelled until, seeing a pair of black eyes peeping from the doorway of a certain mud house, he had become very much interested in that section of the city although it belonged to a low caste of Hindus. He remembered how for several evenings he had taken his evening walk in that locality and furtively watched that house door in which he again saw framed for a second a beautiful Indian face and a slender, lithe Indian figure in a red sari. After a few more visits he had several conversations with the men of the neighbourhood and had learned that the man who lived in that house was, as they all were, of low caste and desperately poor. Finally he had met the man himself whom he heard loudly lamenting because he could not afford to marry off his beautiful daughters. "Why, a wedding costs many rupees nowadays!" he had heard him say.
So the sahib by a little courteous inquiry had learned that the man had three unmarried daughters. By further courteous and diplomatic conversation he had conveyed to the father the idea that if he, the sahib, could have his choice of the three girls he would pay a dowry for one of them. After several evenings of discussion and bargaining the old man slowly and cautiously had consented, but the matter of giving the sahib his choice had been a trifle difficult even among the low caste. But, finally, having bidden the sahib stand at the other corner of the street where he could see without being particularly noticeable, on the evening the bargain was sealed, the old man had called his daughters one at a time to the door of the house on some trifling pretext. It had been only a glimpse, but as the third girl disappeared from the doorway, Blackmore-Sahib had been satisfied. On the very next evening, having promised to pay a sufficient number of rupees to marry off both of the other daughters, the Englishman had had the satisfaction of seeing a little draped figure enter a covered ekka and be driven away towards his bungalow.
He could remember, even after ten years, how the ekka had driven up to his door and how he, having reached the door before her arrival, would not pay the promised money until the girl's veil had been lifted and he had seen for himself that no trickery had been played upon him and that this was the one of his choice. She had been very young, very timid, and very beautiful. He remembered that, cross, burly chap though he was, he had delighted to tease her out of her shyness and teach her the little ways by which she could make him happy and his bungalow a home. She had been an ignorant native girl, as the majority of Indian girls are, but she had soon learned to love him and she had always been beautiful to look upon.
They had not been married. That was not necessary in those days in the East. He had given her a good home and in doing that he had done his whole duty. Yet he had never mentioned her in his letters to England, for "they would not understand." Indeed, he had half expected until the last two years to go back to England and marry a fine girl whom he had known in boyhood. But when the time had drawn near he had decided to stay here as he was;—for what would become of Nona? He could not keep her, too, for even he did not think that way of living right. He sometimes longed for the green meadows and the hawthorne bush and the skylark, nevertheless he remained in India, for he could not take Nona and he could not leave her.
But now it seemed as if Nona were going to leave him. If she should die, he would be free to go to England to marry his childhood friend, for a recent letter from his brother had told him that Elizabeth was still unmarried and mistress of her own estate. But now, of a sudden, he did not want to go; he did not want to marry. Indeed, he did not want anything but to stay here with Nona. He wanted Nona! She must not die! He needed her.
"Sahib!" A soft voice arrested his step and Nona's ayah besought him: "Sahib, she is no better. May I get the memsahib? I think she can help her."
"What memsahib?" he asked, his voice gruff with emotion.
"The missionary memsahib, master. Please let me get her."
"A missionary! Would a missionary come to my house?" he asked in scorn.
Blackmore-Sahib had seen the missionary lady often, for she was one of the very few Europeans in the city, but he never had spoken to her. He knew missionary principles and he felt that he and Nona in her eyes were worse than the Hindus "in their blindness." He had always avoided a missionary's path; now he would not ask for help! Even if he should humble his pride and do so, he felt that no Christian would come to him, for were not he and Nona without the law?
"No, she would not come," he said emphatically.
"Yes, master, she will come. I know she will come. See how ill my mistress is! Hear her moans!" and the faithful ayah wrung her hands in grief. "Oh, let me go to get her."
"Is she a doctor?" he asked. "Does she give medicine?" he went on, trying to make the native woman understand.
"No, she is not a doctor, but she gives medicines," the woman replied enigmatically.
There was no doctor within reach. If this woman could help Nona, had he any right to let his pride keep him from at least asking for her help? Blackmore-Sahib reasoned it out slowly. Although he was sure that she would not come, he must do all that he could to help the sick woman and so he must ask the missionary to come.
"Go!" he said finally to the ayah and as she sped down the road he continued his pacing and his thoughts. His thoughts turned strangely, after the interruption, to his boyhood home and his boyhood days when even a lie, a wrong word, or an unkind deed had hurt him almost as much as his mother. But his mother had died when he was only a lad and after that had come school and then India and—Nona.
The change from the rigid morality of a well-trained boy living under the eye of a law-abiding people, to the moral thoughtlessness and neglect of a man far away from the reign of aught but the law of the conqueror among an inferior people; the change from the conventional obedience to the social customs of a Christian land, to the unconventional disregard of all Christian customs in a heathen land, had come so gradually that Blackmore-Sahib had never before realized how different he was in moral integrity from what he had been in that boyhood home and how different he must be in reality from what his mother had imagined that he would be in her fond dreams about the future. Had India by her enervating climate, by the ease with which she gratifies the sensual side of man's nature, and by the intellectual loneliness in which she makes her foreign rulers live—had India by these means warped his moral sense? Or had his good life in Christian England been a foolish fanaticism and was his life here the true living of a free soul?
Blackmore-Sahib was startled at the presence of such questionings in a mind which heretofore had accepted his conduct and life unquestioned. But at that moment there stole upon him the memory of a sweet white face, drawn with pain and the sound of a low but earnest voice saying, "My boy, I am going away—to leave you alone. Be strong and brave and good." These memories as they mingled in his mind and ears with the picture of a beautiful, dark face full of suffering into which he had looked that very morning and the sound of sharp moans still coming through the half-closed bungalow door, worked strange havoc within him.
Although his thoughts had carried him far, only a few moments had actually passed when, hearing quick steps beyond the compound wall, he came to a halt and saw an English woman hurry in at the gate, followed by the panting ayah.
"Good-afternoon, Mr. Blackmore," spoke a pleasant English voice. "I am not a physician, but I'll do the best I can."
Blackmore-Sahib followed clumsily, as a man does in a house of illness, after the energetic little figure that went straight to Nona's room. There the missionary spent much time examining her patient and it was with anxious eyes that she finally looked at the man as he sat near the door.
"It is a serious case. I have seen just one like it before," she said. "But since it is impossible to get a real physician I will do the best I can. Will you kindly send me a couple more servants and order several tubs of hot water got ready? Then, please, go away for a gallop and do not come back for several hours. I don't believe you know much about sickness and a good ride will brace you up, for you will have to watch with her to-night, I think." The last was said with a smile as she started quickly and quietly about her preparations.
At the end of two hours he met her at the bedroom door.
"She is more comfortable, but it will be a hard fight. I shall stay here to-night. I don't dare trust the case to any one else yet."
In the morning, when at five o'clock he was wakened from a fitful sleep by a rap at his door, the same voice said, "She is resting now. Will you come and watch her while I go home for a short time? I cannot leave her alone with the servants, for they are either too tired or too stupid to obey instructions this morning."
About seven she returned and all day long, sometimes by turns, sometimes together, they watched and waited, doing all they could to help Nature bring back peace to the poor suffering body.
About the middle of the morning he asked her how she had gained her medical skill. Then she told him of her life in India and how she had found that by helping the sick she could most easily reach the hearts of the people. She told of spending one furlough in a hospital at home for training. Seeing that the conversation did not annoy the patient and that it seemed to interest the man, she went on telling about her work and the joys and sorrows that she had experienced as a missionary. Not one word of preaching! She simply told of her life as if talking to an old friend. There was not a sign that she had recognized anything unusual in this household or seen anything to condemn. He began to wonder if she knew and yet he felt that she did know. She talked about England and the home she had hoped to go to the next year; but no one had been found to take her place and she could not go until there was some one to work for her people. He was surprised at the light in her eyes when she said: "I'll not leave them without some one to care for them even if I have to put off my home-going all my life."
She talked of Christ so freely and of her own religious beliefs so naturally that he felt that her speech grew out of her life and he did not resent the personal religious element in her conversation which he had always avoided and resented in others.
But while she was talking in low tones or listening to him as he, in turn, told of his home in England, she kept a keen eye on her patient. About eight o'clock at night a change came. The moaning stopped; the restless brown hands grew still; the breath came regularly; and Nona slept a quiet, restful sleep. The memsahib, on her knees beside the bed, looked up at the big, burly, white man standing on the other side of the narrow couch. "She will get well," she said simply. "And now—now"—she stammered with difficulty, "you will marry her, won't you?"
As the astonished man gazed into her wistful, earnest face a slow resolve grew in his own. The coming of this strong, wholesome woman into his life, the revival of the memories of his boyhood, the face of his mother, never entirely forgotten, and now clear and vivid before his very eyes, and, more even than all these, the dawning consciousness of the Presence in which his life had been lived and was now being judged cleared away all his ethical confusion, revealed to him the evil of his past life and begat in him a great desire for cleansing and a high purpose to make amends for the past.
And so when the missionary memsahib said to him, "You will marry her, won't you?" his astonishment slowly gave way to a sense of high moral purpose. After a silence which revealed the struggle within, he replied in a firm voice, "I will! and may God bless you."
With these words the man dropped upon his knees on the other side of the bed and his head rested for a moment on the pillow very close to the beautiful brown face there. Then, without asking permission, the missionary prayed a simple prayer of thanksgiving for the life of the woman and a request for a blessing upon her English brother and herself that they might shape their lives after the character of Christ and live according to Christian laws.
Then the missionary slipped quietly out of the room, for the danger was over and the servants could take as good care of their mistress as could she. But she promised the anxious ayah as she went away that she would come in from time to time for a few days to see that all went well.
Two weeks from that day an Englishman stood with a Hindu woman by his side in a missionary's parlour and there a quiet wedding ceremony was performed. To the bride it meant nothing, but to the bridegroom it meant an entire change in his life and heart.
Several years later an English gentleman bore unflinchingly the embarrassment—and worse—of introducing an Indian wife to his English family at home. Tenderly he sheltered her from all annoyances and apparently with pride he took her from place to place in the homeland. Only one person, a missionary from India, home on a long-delayed furlough, guessed that the journey was one prolonged torture to the man who, from a high sense of duty to a woman who could not even comprehend it, was making her all amends in his power for a wrong which, also, she did not comprehend.
"I don't understand why he married a native," one of the Englishman's relatives remarked to a friend. "Otherwise he is a perfect Christian gentleman and an honour to the family."
The missionary, who chanced to overhear the remark, in her mind erased the "otherwise."
"Mundra!" a harsh voice screamed from the door of the mud house. "Mundra, child of the devil, come here. Where are you, spending all your life in laziness and I working hard to put rice into the mouth of a god-cursed creature like you!"
There would have been no need for more than the first call, if the old woman had simply wanted the child to come to her, for at the first sound of the voice the little thing had started up from the dirt of the road where she had been lying and, gathering the sari, in which she had been wrapped, up around her hips and waist, had moved hastily towards the speaker. But the woman seemed to be giving vent to her own ill nature in an evidently customary and certainly vivid way.
"You vile object of the gods' wrath! To be sleeping when every decent creature is at work!
"Bring water," the old woman commanded fiercely and with a thrust of her foot sent the child, who had reached the door by that time, reeling in the direction of a large brass water pot which stood in a corner of the mud porch.
Evidently too wise and too tired for words, the little creature, recovering her balance, quietly but not without great difficulty, lifted the big, brass jar and, putting it upon her head, started off down the village street.
The small, dark, thin figure walked very straight because of the jar on the head, not from any sense of pride, for what had Mundra to be proud of? Not a single ornament so dear to the hearts of India's women did the child wear; her sari was but a dirty cloth; and her head was shaven. Little girls of her own age with clinking anklets and glistening jewels drew away their gay garments from any possible contact with hers as she came near and stepped to one side of the street with their water jars. The men who came towards her along the road carefully turned away so as to avoid her shadow as she passed them. And no one addressed her except as a small boy now and then pointed a finger at her and called out the same words which the men muttered to themselves as she passed them—"Cursed of the gods."
As she paused to rest for a moment under the shade of the great peepul tree which protects the emblems most sacred to the Hindu villager, even the priest, who tended the various small shrines beneath the great tree, muttered a curse and moved quickly to the other side of the gnarled trunk where a coolie, clad only in soiled white loin cloth and dirty pink turban, was winding a garland of marigolds about one of the sacred stones. The worshipper's attention, attracted by the sudden movement of the priest, was drawn to Mundra and he in turn, muttering, paused in his acts of worship until the contaminating presence should be withdrawn.
When the child reached the well, she had to wait at a distance until all the others there had filled their vessels and gone. Then she filled her own and, without assistance, although it took a dreadful struggle, raised it to the necessary position on her head.
But the child was so accustomed to all this treatment and so tired that she scarcely noticed how the people acted. Her body ached all over, from hard work and blows, even to her very heart, which really ached hardest of all. Just one short year before Mundra had been one of the happy, bejewelled girls of this very town and everybody had smiled at her and passers-by had called her "Blest of the gods." But now how different! Her father had been of the weaver caste and when she had been about ten years old, no native ever knows his exact age, she had been married to a man in the same caste. And at that time, less than one year before, she had gone to her husband's home a welcomed bride, the very home to which she was now returning in disgrace, and her mother-in-law had been pleased with her and greeted her with kind words, the very same woman who but a few moments before had kicked her away with curses.
At the time of Mundra's wedding the people had been anxious because rain had not come and the crops were dying. Therefore, with grain still at famine prices from the year before, conditions had been bad in the district where she lived. So it had not been a surprise when, soon after the wedding, among these ill-fed natives had come the ever-expected and ever-dreaded cholera. In the early days of the scourge Mundra's father and mother had died. At first their death had meant little to the child for she was no longer a part of their household. But soon death did take one whose going meant at once more to her, almost more, than the loss of her own life. One morning her husband, a strong man of about thirty, was stricken. By nightfall another body had been placed upon the funeral pyre and Mundra was a widow.
Mundra, and she alone, had caused the death of her husband; so thought every one in the village and so thought the child herself, brought up in Hinduism. Now she realized the death of her parents, for had they been alive she would have been sent back to them at once. But since they were dead she had to be kept as a despised member of the household of her mother-in-law, practically a slave there, with all the hardships and abuse usually attendant upon the lot of such an one. Her hair had been cut off; her pretty jewelry had been taken from her; her coloured saris had been sold to a neighbour; and in place of all these belongings she had been given a few yards of white cotton to wrap about her and part of a ragged blanket for a bed. But Mundra could have stood all this hard treatment, hard as it had been, and even gladly would have slept on the mud porch with the cattle or in the street with the dogs, if only every one had not hated her and shunned her as foul and unclean, if only some one had loved her, if only some one had even spoken kindly to her sometimes or smiled upon her.
"Late as usual, you foul creature of the dust! If you have touched that water with your unclean hands, may the next drop which you take into your accursed mouth choke you! To your work there at once, you abomination in the sight of all that's holy! May the moon blast you! May the sun smite you! May your food poison you! And may the gods damn you, you devil-bought murderer of men!"
This was the greeting the child received as she staggered upon the porch and almost fell as she set the brass jar in the corner. But not one moment's rest was there for her.
"To your work, I say!" shrieked the woman again, pointing a brown, bony finger towards the grinding-stones in the opposite corner of the porch where sat a strong young girl, about sixteen years of age, with her hand already upon the handle of the stones waiting for Mundra to help her. This girl was well dressed, an honoured daughter-in-law in the family, who must do a share of the household work, as all Indian women, except the rich, must, but who was well fed, strong, and able to work.
Mundra sank down on the floor beside the mill and, placing her small hand on the handle above the other's big one, threw all the strength she could muster into her thin arm to make the one great stone revolve upon the other beneath and crush to flour the grain which by handfuls with her free hand the older girl was pouring into the opening at the top of the stone.
Meanwhile the mother-in-law had lighted a fire in the tiny mud stove beside them, the home-made mud stove, found even in the kitchens of the rich, a small, hollow, semicircular mound of mud about eight inches high, upon which a kettle could be set and within which a fire could be lighted and replenished through the opening in front. Upon this stove, instead of a kettle, the woman had put a large, flat, iron griddle, upon which, after having patted and rolled out some flour, she threw a flat cake, about eight inches in diameter. This cake she turned with a pair of long, iron tongs. After it had browned a little, she thrust it over the coals in the fire to let it puff out and when it was just right to suit her Indian taste, with the iron tongs she tossed it, the hot chapati, the common bread of India, into a basket by her side. This process she had repeated until her basket was nearly full.
The old woman was not so busily engaged with this task, however, as to be unable to give her attention to other things. When Mundra's tired hand relaxed its hold upon the handle of the grinding-stones and the strength in her little body gave out, with one swing of the arm, down upon the child's bare back came the hot tongs.
"To work, you accursed creature!" screamed the mother-in-law.
A sharp cry of agony followed the blow, but Mundra, although her body was quivering with pain, resumed her work. For a few minutes she managed to keep up the straining movement of the arm. Then, in spite of all her gathered will, her fingers slipped again. Down came the hot tongs a second time upon the tender, though dark, skin and Mundra fell in a faint beside the mill.
When the child regained consciousness she was still lying beside the mill. She could hear the family within eating their evening meal of chapatis, rice, and curry. She could hear their talk of the coming rain, of the tiger that had been seen in the jungle near the river, of the preparations for the festival of Ram, and of the offerings of rice and flowers which must be taken to the god before the day of the great procession. Dimly she heard it all. No one mentioned her or seemed to have noticed her lying there in the corner of the porch. She hoped that they had not; if they would only forget her and torture her no more for a little while she would be so glad!
The smell of the fresh chapatis, however, made her long for food, for as a widow she had had no meal since morning and could have nothing more until the next day. The pain in her back almost made her cry out at times, but she restrained herself and lay still, unheeded, in the corner behind the mill, until darkness came and the lump of clay in the little shrine across the street under the red flag had been propitiated by offerings of rice and chapatis, and the people of the household had rolled themselves in their blankets and gone to sleep.
Then Mundra dragged herself to the edge of the porch and looked about. All was dark except a tiny spot in front of the shrine opposite, which was still lighted by a small wick burning in a shallow dish of oil. The priest had not yet come for the offering.
All was quiet.
An old blue rag, the remnants of a sari, lay on the floor near her. Mundra picked it up quickly. As quickly and silently she slipped across the street, and—unholy act! worthy of one "cursed of the gods"!—she emptied the dish of rice which stood there before the idol into the piece of blue cloth; then laying the chapatis upon the rice, hurriedly tied the whole into a bundle. For a moment she stood looking up and down the street. In both directions all was still quiet and dark. But she did not hesitate long. Towards the river, where the jungle lay, the tiger might be; down towards the well, where the village street joined the public highroad, there might be—the child did not know what, except that somewhere in that direction lay the great city.
She turned towards the highroad. Creeping along, half walking, half crawling, she reached the well. There beside it she tore off her own dirty white covering, and, having changed the rice from the blue cloth into a piece of the white, she wrapped the ragged blue sari around her and drew it up over her shaven head.
Having, with the shrewdness of the native, placed her old clothes on the brink of the well, Mundra, now no longer in the garb of a widow, turned down the main road towards the great city. She knew not what might await her there, but, childlike, she had faith to believe that even unknown people would not treat a beggar more cruelly than she, a widow, had been treated by her own.
The great bungalow, set far back in the grassy compound and shaded by mango trees, looked peaceful and sleepy in the afternoon sunlight. The very roses in the carefully rounded beds in the centre of the lawn before the house were nodding as if resting in the shade after the blaze of an Indian noonday sun. The only human creature in sight, a dhersy, sitting cross-legged on the little side porch, was asleep over his sewing. Between the rows of potted ferns and palms along the front veranda appeared glimpses of white as if the occupants of the bungalow might be taking their siestas on the open rattan couches in preference to the warmer curtained beds within, one of which could be seen through an open bedroom door. A mongoose, tied to a post of the veranda, had, for a moment, ceased to fret at his bondage and gone to sleep. Even several lizards half-way across the gravel path from one grassy hunting ground to another had stopped as if too exhausted to pursue the never-ending chase. Only the shadows moved, little by little lengthening out, creeping towards the compound wall, as the never-sleeping sun continued his ceaseless journeying towards the west.
Still one hundred and twenty by the thermometer which on the wall behind the sleeping dhersy caught the direct rays of the sun! At three o'clock of an afternoon in India after a morning's combat with the heat how could Nature do aught but sleep in whatever shade she could find for her weary head? But even in sleepy, dreamy India there are the exceptions that prove the rules. Suddenly a wail arose upon the sleepy air and a most terrified cry broke up all quiet and repose.
The dhersy, startled from his stolen slumber, looking up guiltily, quickly began to turn the wheel of the hand-sewing machine beside him. The mongoose tugged at his cord. And a frightened woman started up from her couch on the front veranda, as a little white figure with flying feet and topiless curly head came running from behind the bungalow with the usual cry of childhood's terror:
"Mother! Mother! Oh, mother!"
Even the ayah, who was trying to keep up with the child but having a hard time to run in her long, tightly-drawn sari, looked frightened. An ugly chattering, sounding from behind the house, kept up for some moments as the mother, having gathered the child up in her arms, sat down again with her, soothing and quieting her as only a mother can, while the ayah dropped panting on the floor beside them.
"There, dear, what is the matter? Tell mother quickly."
"Oh, mother! The monkeys! The monkeys!" sobbed the child.
"There, there, dear, don't cry. You are here with mother now and the monkeys cannot hurt you. Tell mother what happened."
However, before the little girl could calm herself enough to tell the story, the ayah began it for her.
"Baby woke early from her nap to-day, Memsahib, and would not go to sleep again and so I dressed her and brought her down for her bread and milk. She ate it like the good little girl that she is and so I gave her a piece of cake. I had just turned to put the plate back in the cupboard, when I heard a scrambling noise behind me and there was a monkey. He grabbed the cake from baby's hand and ran up a tree, chattering. He was a great, big fellow, the biggest one I ever saw. He looked very fierce and chattered terribly. Of course baby was frightened most to death and she ran at once for you." The ayah looked fearfully over her shoulder. "I'm afraid to go back there again myself."
"Hush, ayah!" whispered the mother over the child's head. "Don't frighten her any more. And you were giving her cake, too, when I have told you that she must not have any for a few days now as she really hasn't been feeling very well."
"Oh, mother!" interrupted the child, who had got the better of her sobs. "The monkey looked so ugly and grabbed the cake right out of my hand just as I was going to take a bite. His paw almost touched my face. Will he come again?"
"No, dear," replied the mother as she hugged the little girl close in her arms. "Father comes home to-night. We will tell him and he will send the monkeys away. Something has got to be done, for we cannot have the naughty monkeys stealing our baby's food right out of her mouth," she added playfully.
"Look, dear," she said in a moment to the child whose fright was soon over. "See how your curls are mussed! And, dearie," she looked at the little girl very reproachfully, "you ran all the way around in the sun without your topi. Go into the house now and let ayah fix your hair and wash your face. Then you can come out again and we will watch for father together, for he will surely come soon. Won't it be nice to have father home again?" And she kissed the child as she set her down on the floor. "A week isn't very long, but it seems a month since he went away this time."
"Yes, the naughty monkeys have been so bad!" nodded the little girl as she hopped along into the bungalow before her native nurse, forgetful of her fear, for her father was coming home and he was to her omnipotent. Nothing, not even a monkey, could harm her while he was near.
For a moment after the child had gone, the mother remained standing by one of the veranda pillars, looking down the road in the direction of the railway station. But soon she retreated to a chair near the door, for the branches of the biggest tree near the porch had begun to sway and she could see distinctly at least one pair of bright eyes peering out from among the shining green leaves.
"Something must be done!" she said aloud as she sank into the chair, at the same time instinctively taking up in her hand a paper weight which lay on the table beside her. "We just cannot stand being thus bothered and frightened by these animals, and such horrid looking ones too!"
The Burbanks had been in Sindabad only two weeks and had scarcely got settled in their bungalow when Mr. Burbanks had been called away on business. He had felt very secure about leaving his family because of the location of their new home which was about half a mile from the native city and very close to the other few European residences. To him the bungalow had appeared to be far enough away from the native quarter to be free from all unpleasant sights, odours, and visitors, the usual unpleasant associations of too close proximity to one of the sacred cities of India. Disagreeable sounds he had expected they would hear, for the hideous sounds, especially of night in a Hindu city, carry far. But after a residence of five years in India he did not think his family would be particularly annoyed by them.
So Mr. Burbanks had been perfectly satisfied with his new residence and its location until just before he left he and his wife had been obliged to drive through the native city on some errand. It had been with great disgust that they had seen the filth of the place, the usual filth of a native city, but here augmented by a horde of hideous monkeys that, unrestrained, wandered about the streets, over the houses, in and out of the windows, apparently the most respected denizens of this most holy city. To kill a monkey is a most heinous sin in the eyes of a Hindu! Did not Haunamon and his monkeys help the great god Ram and rescue his wife Sita when she had been carried off by his rival? Besides, these animals are surely some Hindu's beloved dead. Therefore no one in Sindabad ever touched or harmed a monkey. When, however, the creatures got so thick that life became unendurable, the people would entice a crowd of them into a great basket and carry them off to the forest and let them loose there. But this did not happen often, because the native of India will put up with well-nigh unendurable conditions rather than break through established custom and perform an unusual task.
As they had looked upon the monkey-infested city, Mrs. Burbanks had wondered aloud if the animals would venture as far as their bungalow, but her husband had assured her that they were much too far from the city and the bazaars for that. But the sight of the animals had taken off the keen edge of their satisfaction in their new home and womanlike Mrs. Burbanks had worried about the matter until a week had passed without the appearance of any such company in the compound. Then she had felt better and both of them had forgotten all about the monkeys. However, the very next morning after her husband's departure a strange running and jumping on the roof had awakened Mrs. Burbanks, who, peering cautiously from the window of her roof-bedroom, a room which the most fortunate of India's foreign residents consider a requisite of their bungalows for the hot weather, she had seen a couple of big monkeys sporting across the roof. And from that moment it had kept up: monkeys here; monkeys there; monkeys everywhere, poking their inquisitive fingers and noses into everything in the compound except the house itself. Into the house they had not ventured and even on the verandas the family had felt secure from intrusion until now; but now one had actually jumped into the rear veranda and stolen a piece of cake from Marjory's hand.
"This is too much! Something must be done!" said Mrs. Burbanks again aloud but in a more decided tone, as she saw three of the brown creatures playing tag across the rose-bed.
Just then the sound of horses' feet upon the road came to her ears; the monkeys vanished; and Mrs. Burbanks forgot her annoyance in greeting her husband as he drove up in a covered gari, shunning the light even of the setting sun.
Mr. Burbanks looked tired as he superintended the carrying in of his luggage and the paying of the gariwala, who, of course, tried to insist upon a larger fare than the correct one handed him. He seemed glad to stretch out at once in a big chair and take a cup of tea from his wife's hand, while he listened drowsily to her account of the happenings of the week of separation. Little Marjory came out for her petting soon and clambered upon the arm of his chair. Smoothing his hair, she wove admiring remarks upon her father's appearance and her gladness at his return into an account of her recent experience with the monkey.
"Father dear," she said, turning his head with a chubby hand on each side of his chin. "Father dear, I'm so glad you have come home. Now you must look right at me for I've something very 'portant to tell you. Father, a monkey"—her eyes got big and round, "a monkey jumped down from the tree—— Oh, father! What funny eyes you've got!" and she stopped her story with a little squeal to look at his eyes which he had made very round in imitation of her own when she had mentioned the monkey. Then not satisfied with just looking at such "funny" eyes, Marjory pulled them up at the corners to see how they would look that way. After a moment's critical survey, she shook her head and went on with her story. "The monkey jumped down from a tree. Ayah had just given me a piece of cake and—— Why, father, what a pretty necktie you've got! I never saw that one before." With pats and pulls she spent some time endeavouring to arrange the "pretty necktie" before going on with her story. "And"—she began again with a lingering look at her last twist at the tie, "that monkey jumped down from the tree right at me and grabbed my cake and ran away."
She paused again and inspected her sleepy looking father. "I b'lieve," she said as her eye ran slowly up and down her father's white-clad figure, "I b'lieve I'd like monkeys better if they wore white. Do monkeys ride on railway trains? Did they keep you awake last night as they did mother? You look so sleepy, father dear, that I am sure they did."
Mr. Burbanks, somewhat awakened by the incongruous remarks of his daughter, laughed and said, "I've never met a monkey on a railway train yet. But weren't you afraid of the one you saw?"
"Oh, yes. I cried and ran to mother but I'm not afraid any more now for mother said you wouldn't let them hurt me." And Marjory cuddled down in his arms.
"See, there is one in that tree there now and I'm not afraid," she said after a moment and, raising her head from his arm, pointed towards a tree a little to the right, where was a large monkey jumping from bough to bough with a tiny baby monkey clinging fearlessly beneath her.
The father and the little girl watched the monkey and her baby with great interest until the ayah came and took Marjory in to bed.
Throughout dinner and the evening Mrs. Burbanks told of their troubles with the monkeys during her husband's absence and urged him to do something to drive them away.
But at the close of the evening all the satisfaction she received was this very masculine reply to all of her urgings: "You are simply nervous over them. I don't believe they will do any harm. In fact they seem to me to be rather interesting creatures. That one out there on the lawn this afternoon appeared perfectly harmless and playful. Besides they are sacred animals and we might make the Hindus very angry if we should touch them." And with a yawn Mr. Burbanks started for bed.
When Mrs. Burbanks saw that all of her conversation had not impressed her husband with the urgency of the situation, unusual woman that she was, she said no more, but wisely left the matter to time. Even when they were awakened at an early hour the next morning, she did not say a word, but listened with relish to the remarks which issued from the curtained bed beside her own.
Since Mr. Burbanks' departure his wife had paid no attention to his office, as her servants could be trusted to keep things clean and in order. Therefore, when he came to her a little later in the morning with complaints about the condition of his desk, she was extremely annoyed. His inkstand had been tipped over; his blotting-pad was torn; his pens were lying scattered about the room; and the books on the table were all in confusion. The servants declared that all had been in perfect order the night before. The ayah said that Marjory had not entered the room. So Mrs. Burbanks, after inspecting the strange confusion, was about to leave the room in perplexity when she chanced to glance at one of the high windows. Quickly, with a smile upon her lips and a twinkle in her eye, she motioned to her husband to come from the veranda where he had retired after finding the disorder in his study. His eyes followed hers to the window and there he saw a monkey watching them intently from the small window sill.
"Don't stare at him or he may spring at you," cautioned Mrs. Burbanks. "Monkeys are just the opposite to most animals. You cannot treat one or control him in the same way, for it angers him to have you look him in the eye. The servants all tell me that."
As they turned away, the bearer entered the room. To his wife's amusement, Mr. Burbanks addressed him fretfully. "Boy, can't you drive these monkeys away? They are beginning to be a nuisance."
"Me touch a monkey!" The usually obedient boy raised his hands in horror.
During the dialogue the monkey had scuttled away. So the high window was closed by the long bamboo pole, for—"The monkeys must be kept out even if the ventilation is interfered with," said the head of the house.
After breakfast the post brought a package of home letters and, although it was the middle of the morning, Mr. Burbanks took a while off, after his week of strenuous work, to listen to home news. He laid himself in a comfortable chair preparatory to listening to his wife's reading, for he always preferred to hear her comments and exclamations as she read aloud than to read the letters himself. Mrs. Burbanks seated herself at the table beside him and, although a young woman, put out her hand to take up the reading glasses which invariably lay by her sewing basket.
"Why, my glasses aren't here!" she exclaimed in a tone of annoyance.
A search followed but no glasses could be found. After a while, in despair, Mrs. Burbanks handed the letters to her husband and prepared to be herself the listener, a situation which neither really enjoyed. But scarcely had Mr. Burbanks reached the second page of the first letter when an exclamation of surprise from his wife stopped the reading and he found her looking with laughing eyes at a spot high up on the wall. There, hanging by the bows from the moulding, were the spectacles. With one voice the two exclaimed: "A monkey!"
The boy was called and the spectacles were soon rescued from the dangerous place where they had evidently been hung with great care, for they were uninjured.
Although this was but a trifling incident, Mr. Burbanks was disturbed by the impertinence of the "ugly beasts." But his wife made no comments on the encounters of the morning, going on with her work in silence, although she had to hang her head to hide her smiling lips at some of his muttered remarks when he returned from an attempt to clear up the papers on his office desk. One valuable document was badly blotted with ink and a letter of the greatest importance he had been able to read only after patching together the torn bits gathered from the rug.
Mr. Burbanks was plainly annoyed but his annoyance grew to fear in the early afternoon when, in passing by the dining-room door, he happened to look in. Marjory had slipped into her mother's chair and with a big napkin around her neck was about to eat a luscious guava which lay on the plate before her. Mr. Burbanks was just on the point of calling out something in play to his little daughter, when a quick motion on the wall behind her attracted his attention. Afraid to move or speak for fear of bringing greater danger to the child, the father watched in silence. An immense monkey slid down the wall and jumped into the chair beside the little girl, with his eye on the fruit before her. The child, frightened, shooed with her handkerchief at the beast, who, turning his eyes upon her, showed his teeth and snarled. The man held his breath; but the child, shoving the plate of fruit towards the animal quickly slipped from her chair and ran, unharmed, out of the room. In a second the monkey had seized the guava and was gone through the high window.
That was the last straw. No one could live in such danger! Mr. Burbanks went back to his study and called the boy, but he did not tell his wife what he had seen.
"Can you drive the monkeys away?" he asked the boy again.
"Me no touch monkeys. Me afraid. Monkeys belong gods," was the reply he received.
The gentleman could see that no help was to be had from his servants and he realized that he himself must move cautiously or he might bring the wrath of the Hindu city upon him. Therefore he thought the matter over carefully and decided that first of all after it had become dark he would fire off his pistol and perhaps frighten the monkeys away without harming them. So, as soon as night had come and all were in bed, he told his wife what he intended to do. She was overjoyed at his quick conversion to her views, for she did not know even then of Marjory's experience, as the child, soon forgetting it in her play, had not mentioned it to her mother.
Mr. Burbanks stepped out upon the roof and after a moment's pause fired his pistol into a clump of trees at a little distance from the bungalow. A sharp, shrill, almost human cry came from the tree and then all was still. Even the chokidar, already asleep, did not seem to have heard the shot.
"Well, I've killed one, I guess," Mr. Burbanks said as he came back into the room. "That is too bad! I hope the natives won't mind. But it is over now and we need not worry. If they do make a fuss we will just have to face the music, that's all. Probably it will drive the animals away effectually, if one of them is killed. I most sincerely hope so."
There was quiet throughout the night, although Mrs. Burbanks lay awake listening for trouble as women will. But in the early morning, just as she had at last fallen into a light sleep, they were both awakened by the usual noise of running and jumping on the roof. With an exclamation of great annoyance Mr. Burbanks sprang up and opened the shutters of the door. He stood there in silence for a minute before he spoke again and then he called his wife softly to come and look out. There, on the roof, stood a female monkey and before her lay a tiny, baby monkey, dead, with a hole in its breast. The mother patted it with her paw; she stroked it; then she ran around it and jumped up and down as if to attract its attention. Then she took it up and put its arms about her and started to spring away, evidently expecting it to cling beneath her as it had always done; but the little thing fell limply back upon the roof. Again and again the mother tried, with the infinite patience of a mother. But finally, with a cry of despair, she picked the baby up in her arms and, squatting down, rocked to and fro, moaning and moaning. The servant, bringing up the chota hazri, made a noise at the foot of the stairs. The monkey, with an almost human look of woe, glanced around at the sound and the Burbanks, watching from the shuttered door, saw the agonized expression on her face, as she sprang to her feet and with the dead baby still clasped tightly in her arms leaped away among the tree tops.
With tears in her eyes Mrs. Burbanks turned to her husband. "You won't shoot another, will you?"
"No, my dear, we'll move before I use the gun again. But it seemed to be a choice between her baby and mine and, of course, I am glad that it was hers," Mr. Burbanks replied. Then he told his wife of Marjory's experience.
But the Burbanks did not have to move, for the monkeys disappeared. Since her parents never told Marjory why they had gone, she watched for them for a long time and ate her cakes in haste lest "a naughty monkey might snatch 'em."
One day a short time after their disappearance Marjory received a present from her father of a little black dog. When she playfully asked him why he had bought her the dog, expecting that he would say because she had been such a good girl, he said, "Because monkeys are afraid of dogs."
"Why, how funny!" she exclaimed. "You bought me a mongoose because snakes are afraid of mongooses and now I have a dog because monkeys are afraid of dogs. What pet will you buy me next, father dear?"
"I will have to live in India a little longer before I can answer that question, my daughter." And, wondering what unexpected danger would next assail his child in this strange land, he swung her up on his shoulder and, as it was sunset, carried her tenderly into the house to her waiting ayah, followed by the dog—a tiny, but sufficient guard against the encroachments of the tribe of Haunamon.
The bare audience room of old Boyle Avenue Church was almost empty; only a few of those who had been present at the afternoon service still lingered, one little knot by the door, another near the altar rail. This is not the church where the real Europeans meet to worship God, you know, nor is it even one of the worshipping places of the semi-European population of Bombay. It is the oldest building of our mission property and belongs to our native church. It is, therefore, all the church home to-day that three separate congregations can boast, our Marathi, Gujarati, and Hindustani congregations.
It is a big, barn-like building situated in a thickly populated part of the city which, just now, is largely occupied by Parsis. But although it is old and bare and far away from most of our native converts, they travel the long distances from their various quarters and attend its services faithfully.