A DEBT OF HONOUR.

A flood of yellow sunshine on yellow sand, and a horse at the gallop. A horse guided by an English boy, in blue spectacles, sitting squarely enough, but somewhat stiffly, in his saddle, as if too independent to give himself away even to the joyous swing of the handsome little beast beneath him. A big boy undoubtedly; but a boy for all his size, and despite the fact that he was an Assistant Commissioner of the third grade. In other words, one appointed to administer justice to the ignorant heathen--those ignorant heathen who seemed to have such odd ideas of life, and to require such immediate regeneration--at the hands of English boys.

In front, across the foreground, the glaring white high road for which he was steering; to the left centre a gnarled, knotted old jhand tree hung with coloured threads and patches, proclaiming it to be still sacred to some effete modern form of serpent-worship--one of those mysterious Indian cults of which no one, not even the disciples themselves, know anything. Young Jones, or Smith--what matters the name when a character has but to figure before the footlights of a single scene?--noticed these threads and patches with the quick but incomprehensive eye of superiority. A not uncommon feeling of contemptuous interest came over him, which prolonged itself even when the cause changed into a wonder why the brute he was riding would not keep its head at the proper angle. Then darkness, and silence!

Smith-Jones's horse had put its foot into a rat-hole and given him a bad fall, about as bad a fall as could well have been, short of those curious plunges over the edge of one world into the next. He lay white and still on the yellow sand, neither in time nor eternity, for a long while. How long matters no more than his name, for this is the story of Smith-Jones, and it is through his eyes and his thoughts that it must be seen and told; therefore until he began to gain consciousness the scene remained, as it were, a blank, despite the fact that there were other actors on the stage.

Most people when coming to themselves (to use a popular, but confusing phrase) meet first of all with a sound of slow, storm-spent breakers rolling in on some unknown shore. Is it the one they are leaving, or the one to which they seek return? Who knows--for the vague wonder is stilled by a whispering hush! growing louder and louder as if both worlds were waiting, finger on lip, for a decision. Then, as a rule, comes a kindly, familiar voice or touch to settle the question in favour of this earth; perhaps some day it may come to summon us to another. Again, who knows?

Smith-Jones, however, felt something so distinctly unfamiliar that he opened his eyes in a fright, relieved to find himself in that unmistakable flood of sunshine which does not exist out of India. Briefly he felt, or thought he felt, a kiss upon his lips. Now Smith-Jones, like most well-trained, unemotional English boys, had a strong dislike to kisses. He lumped them, with many other things, under the generic term bosh, and confined himself to reserved pecks at the foreheads of his mother, his sisters, his aunts, and an occasional, a very occasional, cousin. Even when they had all stood round in tears while Robin the gardener hoisted the brand-new cabin-trunk on to the fly, which from the large white placards on the luggage was evidently destined to carry Smith-Jones part of the way to Bombay, he had only got as far as a kiss on the cheek, despite a choke in his throat, and a distinct inclination to cry.

And now? It was startling in the extreme!

Lying on his back, a prey to somewhat alarmed surprise, he became aware through his nose of a pleasant scent, and through his eyes, of the pendant mistletoe-like twigs of the jhand tree. Mistletoe,--yes, that might account for the kiss; but what about the perfume of roses? There it was again, in company with an old peacock's feather fan which looked as if it were half through a severe moulting. Some one was fanning him, positively fanning him! for the feathers swooped again and again just above his face in composed curves suggestive of leisure and perpetual motion. He tried to find out more by turning his head--an effort which made him realise that he had been within an ace of breaking his neck, and sobered him to acquiescence for a time. Not for long, however, seeing that the boy was a pertinacious boy. So, at the expense of a fearful rick, he discovered a hand and arm belonging to the fan--at least if it was a hand and arm after all, and not merely a withered brown branch. Smith-Jones's blue eyes came to the conclusion that it was at any rate the skeleton of a hand and arm, and what is more a curiously graceful skeleton. Then, being still confused out of speech, he tried to arrest the arm by catching hold of it; but either he had not yet recovered a just estimate of distance, or it eluded his grasp, for the even monotony of the curve continued. And, on the whole, it was pleasant enough to lie on one's back in the yellow sand and be fanned sleepily, gracefully. An enjoyment, however, which could not be allowed long continuance when there was a horse to be caught, a camp to be reached, a judgment to be written; the whole burden of a world, in short, on Smith-Jones's young shoulders.

"I could get up now, if you would remove that fan," he said at last, weakly surprised at his own difficulty in stringing two words together in a foreign tongue.

"There is no hurry, Huzoor," came in immediate reply. "The Protector of the Poor being so very young, there is naturally plenty of time for all things ere he has to leave life; yea, plenty of time."

What a remarkable voice! Soft as the cooing of the doves in the jhand tree, and no louder; the far-away echo of a voice, toneless, yet mellow. But then the whole experience was remarkable, and he lay trying to piece common-sense into it with his brain still muddled by the jar which had so nearly sent him to still more novel environments, until his hatred of bosh made him sit up suddenly, unsteadily, one hand supporting himself, the other averting the sweep of the fan. There was no doubt as to the place; yonder was the white road, there the responsible hole, the wallow in the sand where his horse had rolled, the jhand tree gay in its shreds and patches.

But what was that to one side of him? Some one, either half-fledged girl or shrunken old woman, seated in one of those flat baskets which packmen use for carrying their burdens. It was, in effect, a pack-basket, since cords attached it to one end of a banghy, or yoke, which was resting against a net-full of small earthern pots fastened to the other extremity of the pliant lever. The sight of a human being in a pack-basket was unusual, but Smith-Jones during the last six months (that is to say, during his service in India) had seen so many strange things that he set it down as yet another eccentricity of an eccentric people. The occupant of the basket, however, disturbed him more; he even thought (with a certain sense of shame, which would have been wanting had he been older, or younger) of fairy godmothers--as if such banalities could be considered by Smith-Jones, Assistant Commissioner of the third grade! And yet he was not without excuse. Mr. Rider Haggard has described what "She" became when the fire scorched the charm out of a face and form which, but for magic, would have mouldered and been remoulded to fresh beauty centuries and centuries before. The figure in the pack-basket was as shrunken, as shrivelled, as any "She." Extreme old age had driven womanhood away; it had stolen every curve, every contour, every colour; and yet, possibly because the slow furnace of natural life is kinder than its artificial fires, there was nothing unlovely in the wizened face or form. On the contrary, Smith-Jones, despite the memory of that fancied kiss still haunting his brain, looked at her without a shudder. She was dressed in a way which even his ignorance of the gala costumes of respectable females told him was unusual. A very full red silk petticoat bordered with gay colours was half tucked into the basket, half displayed over the edge in coquettish quillings and frillings of the bright embroidery. A loose sacque of the same stuff, many times too large for the bones it covered, lay in wrinkles on arms and bust with here and there a glint of tarnished tinsel, while a veil of like material, faded to a purplish tint, its heavy gold thread tracings torn, frayed, or wanting, hid all but the tiny hand and arm swaying the fan, and a shrunken, waxen face whence a pair of bright black eyes looked at him wisely.

"The Presence would do well to repose once more," came the worn-out voice. "He is not to die this time. He has broken nought save his blue spectacles, and that is well. Spectacles are not for the young; and, as this slave said but now, my Lord is in possession of such great youth that he can afford to rest till Dittu returns from pursuing the Presence's horse, which, conceiving that the Protector had no immediate need of its services, hath retired, after the manner of beasts, to gorge in a gram field. But I, being Dittu's relation, can affirm that he will of a surety return ere long; therefore rest is within reach, and if the Presence will lie down again I will keep the fly-people from settling on the Presence's face."

To tell the truth, the effort to rise had made Smith-Jones feel decidedly queer, so without more ado he lay back on the pillow which the strange watcher had evidently improvised from the coarse outside veil she had worn over her finery. He guessed this by the lingering smell of roses which clung to the fabric.

"You might tell me how I came to fall off, and who you are," said he after a pause, a little fretfully, for he was unused to inaction, and impatient at things he did not understand.

"Huzoor! rat-holes are very simple things. Or perhaps it was a snake-hole. If my Lord had gone a pace farther from the tree, he would not have been on sacred ground, and then the serpent might not have revenged himself."

Smith-Jones gave a little wriggle. "What bosh!" he muttered; adding aloud, as if to change the subject, "And who are you, mother?"

"If my Lord dislikes old wives' tales," came the cooing voice, "he will not care for mine. He is so young. If the Presence's great-grandfather--"

"What do you know about my great-grandfather?" he interrupted hotly.

"Nothing, except that the Protector of the Poor must have had one. That is all. Nevertheless, if the Presence's great-grandfather (Heaven cool his grave!) had been in Jodhnagar when he was young he might have heard Gulâbi^[28] sing. I am Gulâbi, Huzoor."

The peacock's feather fan, with its scent of dead roses, swung backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, in that even rhythmical sweep which only those accustomed to the task from childhood can maintain for long without break or flaw. It was particularly soothing.

"I was singer to the great Mâharâni at the Pearl Palace," went on the voice, "I had to sing her to sleep whilst I fanned her as I am fanning the Pillar of Justice even now, I used to sing also before the Court in the evening, sitting in the screened room where only the great and the favoured had sight of my mistress. Sometimes the Presence's people came from over the sea; I have seen them. They came in those days for gold and jewels. Sometimes also for love; not for justice, as my Lord comes now. Nor did they wear blue spectacles; but then they were young, and I, who am so old now, I was young also."

The melancholy cadence of her words was quite lost on Smith-Jones, who was fast recovering himself, and beginning once more to take a rational view of life, and an interest in the situation, as a situation. Among other things he was a student of folk-lore, and the chance of acquiring information from this old woman, something that might even be construed into a sun-myth, was exceedingly tempting. "You must know a lot of old songs, mother," he said in superior tones. "Sing me one while we are waiting for Dittu. Or if you can't sing it, you know, just say it; I only want the words."

Was it a faint chuckle he heard, as he lay prone on his back, or only a louder gurgle of those ceaseless doves in the jhand tree? The old lady's voice, imperturbably toneless, arrested his wonder. "Why should I not sing, Huzoor, seeing I am of a family of bards? We sing both of the old and the new order. My father and my father's father sang of them before me; yet I have no son to sing them after me. So the songs I sing die with me. When I am dead no one will hear them any more."

All the more reason why he should hear them now, thought Smith-Jones, feeling surreptitiously in his pocket for a note-book.

"The Presence need not trouble himself. He must close his eyes or I shall forget my song. My singing is for sleep and dreams, and this song has been waiting to be sung so long that it is well-nigh forgotten already. Listen and dream, Huzoor!"

She began in the usual low chant, varied by occasional sudden turns modulating the tone into a higher or a lower key in accordance with the spirit of the story. From a musical point of view there was nothing remarkable in the performance, save the absolute want of vibration in the worn-out voice, whose even softness became all the more remarkable when contrasted by the passion in the words. Yet Smith-Jones felt at once that he was listening to a past mistress in her art. The art which in old times represented history, literature, and the drama, and made the desire for, or possession of, a really good bard a just cause for battle, murder, or sudden death among rival Courts. He could not, of course, recollect the exact words used, but, in telling me the tale years after, he declared that his memory clung close to the original, and that her song swept on untrammelled by more rhyme or rhythm than what seemed to come to it spontaneously through the chant. She sang, in fact, as the native bards sing, with every now and again an interlude of refrain or exclamation serving as a pause during which the singer grasps a fresh idea, a new measure. And this, according to Smith-Jones, was the song that she sang.

The song ceased as abruptly as it began, and Smith-Jones, distinctly disappointed at its want of historical value, thanked the old lady politely. It appeared to him confused and bewildering; nevertheless part of it might be twisted into some semblance of a myth. The sun was frequently mentioned, and the chiming of the hours pointed conclusively to the swallowing up of darkness by light, and vice-versâ. And--by Jove, that must be Dittu returning with the horse!

It was; Dittu, the horse, a bundle of green wheat, and a very broad grin--all of which common objects relieved Smith-Jones, who, to say sooth, felt out of his element lying on his back and being fanned by an old mummy. In his more collected mood it struck him as undignified. He blushed a little, rose hastily, and prepared to mount his horse and depart at once. With this intention, proceeding to rummage in his pockets for a rupee, which with a courteously intended grunt he tendered to the old woman. She might have been a graven image for all the notice she took of him or his coin. The hand holding the fan rested on her lap, her eyes were half-closed.

"The Presence wastes time. He had better give the bucksheesh to me," remarked Dittu, grinning again. "The old mother is nigh stone-deaf and blind. She sits so all day, never saying a word save her prayers. She is a real pious one. Hai, Hai, what misfortune! The stirrup of the Protector of the Poor is broken. God send the iron may be lying in the sand where the base-born beast fell!"

Smith-Jones's puzzled, perturbed look, as he watched Dittu on his knees searching for the missing stirrup-iron, may have been due to anxiety lest he should have to walk six miles into camp. On the other hand, he may have been wondering if the fall had seriously injured his brain; anyhow there was an unusual air of doubt about him when Dittu's grin and the iron came out of the sand together with the remark that, if the Presence would sit down and wait a while, he, Dittu, had some string with which a splice of the broken strap could be made in a minute or two. Meanwhile, as the Presence no longer required the pillow, he would e'en cover up the old mother again with the veil he had taken from her. It was more decent like; and she was a decent old creature, despite the fancy she had to wear those gay garments of her youth. So the white veil was wound about the faded finery, leaving nothing visible but the waxen face with its half-closed eyes.

"What are you carrying her about for?" asked Smith-Jones jerkily.

"She is so old, Huzoor, and we, her belongings, thought she might like to end her long life peacefully in holy Ganges. So as I had the dead ancestors of the village to carry (they are in those little pots on the other side of the yoke, Huzoor) we just put her to make a balance in the basket."

Smith-Jones's blue eyes (they really were fine eyes now the spectacles were away) grew big with surprise. "You mean that those little pots contain your dead ancestors?"

"Their ashes, Huzoor; the ashes of the village for the year. Some one always takes them at pilgrimage-time, and as I was strong I brought the old lady too. She doesn't seem able to die up there amongst us all, and she will have to be brought along some time. She is mostly bones, as it is, no heavier than the ashes yonder."

He nodded his head at the net-full of pots and went on twining the thread. Smith-Jones's face grew more and more troubled. He had read in books of old people being brought thus to end their days devoutly in the sacred stream, and it had seemed to him an interesting and curious habit. That was all. It seemed different now.

"The Presence is surprised at the ways of the dust-like ones," continued Dittu cheerfully; "but old Gulâbi is accustomed to being carried about in a basket. When she was quite a girl--a long time ago, before the gracious and beneficent rule of the Presences came to put an end to all wrongdoing--she had both her feet cut off for something she did. I have heard my grandmother say she was a gay one; but it must have been so long ago that we may forget it in her present decency."

"Both her feet cut off!"

"Huzoor, the feet of young people lead them into mischief. She was a singer, and she got into trouble, so I have heard old folk say. If the Presence will cause forgiveness to be awarded to the speaker, it may be said that the trouble was an Englishman. One of the no-account wanderers who used to come before the Great Company Bahâdur threw the mantle of protection over the poor. I know not the story rightly; perhaps even old Gulâbi hath forgotten it, seeing it was so long ago. The Rani she served was jealous, and would have killed the Singing-Rose (so they called the old mother) but for her art. That they could not spare. What tyrant kills the bulbul in his garden? So they cut her feet off to keep her in the paths of virtue. It is an excellent plan for those who walk lightly. See! the stirrup is ready for the foot of the Presence and will support him safely on his road."

Smith-Jones stood irresolute before the mummylike figure in the basket. "Did she ever tell you the story herself?" he asked at length.

Dittu's tongue clucked emphatic denial from the roof of his mouth. "Huzoor, she became decent before my day. Besides, grandmother said even when she was young Gulâbi held her tongue on that score. Only if folk pitied her for crawling like a frog she would smile, saying some things were worth more than feet, and she expected her deserts some day. Hai! Hai! a bold saying for carnal sinners, but holy Ganges will choke the wickedness from her for ever."

"Then you will take her--to--to Hurdwâr--and--and leave her there." Smith-Jones had a difficulty with this euphemism for the strange and barbarous custom he had read about in books. He seemed to see the old creature seated in her flat basket in the stream, a prey to exposure and cold.

"It would scarcely be worth while her coming back," suggested Dittu humbly. "My grannie (she is over there, Huzoor," nodding his head towards the earthern pots) "was the last person who knew her ere she ceased singing. Now she is gone, wherefore should Gulâbi wait longer? She hath waited over long as it is. To-night, when the moon rises, we will travel onwards to her rest. I must get back to the village by harvest-time."

Smith-Jones gave Dittu the rupee. He rode into camp sedately; he wrote his judgment still more sedately; then he ate his dinner and sat down sedately to read, one book after another--the Asiatic Antiquary, a sermon by his father on the relative guilt of the heathen--which in its day had fluttered the fold of Muddleton-on-the-Fens by its laxity--Herbert Spencer's Sociology, finally The Whole Duty of Man, which had been presented to him by a maiden aunt. And outside, beyond the thin film of canvas separating him from the calm Indian night, stretched a flood of moonshine; the tent-ropes glittering like silver cords against the dark leafage of the banyan-tree, the white road shining like a straight broad path to heaven--or elsewhere. Sitting beside the reading lamp he could see past the furled chicks of the door, right away to east and west: west to Rajputana and the Pearl Palace; east to holy Ganges and the golden gates of the great Rest-House.

Chink-a-chink-a-chink came the brass jingles of a banghy, making Smith-Jones lay down The Whole Duty of Man restlessly, and move towards the door. Along that broad white shining path from west to east came a strange sight,--an old mummy of a woman wrapped in a shroud-like veil and balanced by the ashes of the village. Swaying, bobbing, dancing, mummy and ashes alike, as the pliant bamboo lever on Dittu's shoulder made the jingles chink and the eyes on the worn peacock's plume at either end look as if they were alive. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, bob, bob, bob, came Dittu and his burden. Hurri Gunga! Hurri Gunga! Hurri Gunga!^[29] Just a little guttural grunting, like a pig's, to keep the shuffle and the bob together.

Smith-Jones stood staring into the moonlight, the picture of irresolution. The shadow of the banyan-tree lay right across the road in a solid mass of darkness, as if a great gulf were fixed between the light westward and the light eastward. Here, in this No Man's Land, Dittu set down his banghy, propped the lever into position with his packman's stick, and made sideways for an interlude of tobacco among the camp-followers at the watchfires across the road.

Smith-Jones and the banghy were alone. He could scarcely see it in the darkness, though a wayward gleam of moonlight glittered on the brass jingles and lit up the peacock's eyes. For all that he saw it clearly in his mind. He saw the net of earthern pots, the figure in the shroud,--nay, he saw more! He saw through the grave clothes to the faded finery within, and through that again to something which had not faded despite the long, long years. To something which was waiting still for its reward.

And then a strange thing happened. Smith-Jones forgot everything he had been taught. He forgot his father's sermon, he forgot sociology, folklore, and the whole duty of man. He forgot the sun-myth and the great fight between darkness and dawn which never ceases. He even forgot himself, as he stepped into the shadowy gulf, stooped, and paid another man's debt of honour with a kiss.

He told me the tale years after, when we were sitting over our toddy round a camp fire. It was a moonlight night, and the shadow of a great banyan-tree lay like a gulf across a white road; perhaps that awoke the memory. He was then a married man, with a charming wife and a growing family, but never, he assured me, had he forgotten, nor could he ever forget, that kiss! He declared that for one short second the whole world was at his feet, the wilderness a blossoming rose, the perfumes of which lingered-- Here he took off his spectacles, for though he had given up wearing blue ones years before, his kind eyes had become a little dim, perhaps with the sympathy they bestowed on all sorts and conditions of men; he took off his spectacles, I say, and wiped them furtively.

THE VILLAGE LEGACY.

"The case of Mussumât^[30] Nuttia being without heirs," droned the Court-Inspector.

"Bring her in."

"She is already in the Presence. If the Protector of the Poor will rise somewhat,--at the other side of the table, Huzoor!--beside the yellow-trousered legs of the guardian of peace,--that is Mussumât Nuttia."

A child some three years of age, with a string of big blue beads round her neck,--a child who had evidently had a very satisfying meal, and who was even now preserving its contour by half-a-yard of sugar-cane, stared gravely back at the Assistant Magistrate's grave face.

"She has no heirs of any kind?" he asked.

"None, Huzoor! Her mother was of the Harni tribe, working harvests in Bhâmaniwallah-khurd. There the misfortune of being eaten by a snake came upon her by the grace of God. Mussumât Nuttia therefore remains,--"

"Oh, Guardian of the Poor!" said two voices in unison, as two tall bearded figures swathed in whitish-brown draperies pressed a step forward with outstretched petitioning hands. They had been awaiting this crisis all day long with that mixture of tenacity and indifference which is seen on most faces in an Indian Court.

"Give her in charge of the head-men of the village; they are responsible."

"Shelter of the world! 'tis falsely represented. The woman was a vagrant, a loose walker, a--"

"Is the order, written? Then bring the next case."

One flourish of a pen, and Mussumât Nuttia became a village-legacy; the only immediate result being that having sucked one end of her sugar-cane dry, she began methodically on the other. Half-an-hour afterwards, mounted on a white pony, with pink eyes and nose, and a dyed pink tail to match, she was on her way back to the cluster of reed huts dignified by the name of Bhâmaniwallah-khurd, or Little Bhâmaniwallah. Big Bhâmaniwallah lay a full mile to the northward, secured against midsummer floods by the high bank which stretched like a mud wall right across the Punjab plain, from the skirts of the hills to the great meeting of the five waters at Mittankote. But Little Bhâmaniwallah lay in the lap of the river, and so Bahâdur, and Boota, and Jodha, and all the grave big-bearded Dogas who fed their herds of cattle on the low ground, and speculated in the cultivation of sandbanks, lived with their loins girded ready to shift house with the shifting of the river. That was why the huts were made of reeds; that was why the women of the village clanked about in solid silver jewelry, thus turning their persons into a secure savings-bank.

Mussumât Jewun, Bahâdur the head-man's wife, wore bracelets like manacles, and a perfect yoke of a necklet, as she patted out the dough cakes and expostulated shrilly at the introduction of a new mouth into the family, when Nuttia, fast asleep, was lifted from the pony and put down in the warm sand by the door.

"She belongs to the village," replied the elders, wagging their beards. "God knows what my Lords desire with the Harni brat, but if they ask for her, she must be forthcoming; ay! and fat. They like people to grow fat, even in their jail-khanas."

So Nuttia grew fat; she would have grown fat even had the fear of my Lords not been before the simple villagers' eyes, for despite her tender years, she was eminently fitted to take care of herself. She had an instinct as to the houses where good things were being prepared, and her chubby little hand, imperiously stretched out for a portion, was seldom sent away empty. Indeed, to tell the sober truth, Nuttia was not to be gainsaid as to her own hunger. "My stomach is bigger than that, grandmother!" she would say confidently, if the alms appeared to her inadequate, and neither cuffs nor neglect altered her conviction. She never cried, and the little fat hand silently demanding more, came back again and again after every rebuff, till she felt herself in a condition to seek some warm sunny corner, and curl round to sleep. She lived for the most part with the yelping, slouching village dogs, following them, as the nights grew chill, to the smouldering brick-kilns, where she fed the little dust-coloured puppies with anything above, or beneath, her own appetite.

As she outgrew childhood's vestment of curves and dimples, some one gave her an old rag of a petticoat. Perhaps the acquisition of clothes followed, as in ancient days, a fall from grace; certain it was that Nuttia in a garment was a far less estimable member of society than Nuttia without one. To begin with, it afforded opportunity for the display of many mortal sins. Vainglory in her own appearance, deceit in attempting to palm the solitary prize off on the world as a various and complete wardrobe, and dishonesty flagrant and unabashed; for once provided with a convenient receptacle for acquired trifles, Nuttia took to stealing as naturally as a puppy steals bones.

Then, once having recognised the pleasures of possession, she fought furiously against any infringement of her rights. A boy twice her size went yelling home to his parents on her first resort to brute force consequent on the discovery of a potsherd tied to her favourite puppy's tail. This victory proving unfortunate for the peace of the village, the head-men awoke to the necessity for training up their Legacy in the paths of virtue. So persistent pummelling was resorted to with the happiest effect. Nuttia stole and fought no more; she retired with dignity from a society which failed to appreciate her, and took to the wilderness instead. At earliest dawn, after her begging-round was over, she would wander out from the thorn-enclosures to the world--a kaleidoscope world where fields ripened golden crops one year, and the next brought the red-brown river wrinkling and dimpling in swift current; where big brand-new continents rose up before eager eyes, and clothed themselves in green herbs and creeping things innumerable; going no further, however, in the scale of creation, except when the pelicans hunched themselves together to doze away digestion, or a snub-nosed alligator took a slimy snooze on the extreme edge. If you wished to watch the birds, or the palm-squirrels, or the jerboa rats, you had to face northwards and skirt the high bank. So much of Dame Nature's ways, and a vast deal more, Mussumât Nuttia learnt ere the setting sun and hunger drove her back to the brick-kilns, and the never-failing meal of scraps--never-failing, because the Lords of the Universe liked people to be fat, and the head-men were responsible for their Legacy's condition.

So when an Assistant Magistrate--indefinite because of the constant changes which apparently form part of Western policy--included the Bhâmaniwallahs in his winter tour of inspection, a punchaiyut, or Council of Five, decided that it was the duty of the village to provide Nuttia with a veil, in case she should be haled to the Presence; and two yards of Manchester muslin were purchased from the reserve funds of the village, and handed over to the child with many wise saws on the general advisability of decency. Nuttia's delight for the first five minutes was exhilarating, and sent the head-men back to other duties with a glow of self-satisfaction on their solemn faces. Then she folded the veil up quite square, sat down on it, and meditated on the various uses to which it could be put.

The result may be told briefly. Two days afterwards the Assistant Magistrate, being a keen sportsman, was crawling on his stomach to a certain long low pool much frequented by teal and mallard. In the rear, gleaming white through the caper bushes, showed the usual cloud of witnesses filled with patient amazement at this unnecessary display of energy; yet for all that counting shrewdly on the good temper likely to result from good sport. So much so, that the sudden uprising into bad language of the Huzoor sent them forward, prodigal of apology; but the sight that met their eyes dried up the fountain of excuse. Nuttia, stark naked, stood knee-deep in the very centre of the pool, catching small fry with a bag-net ingeniously constructed out of the Manchester veil.

The punchaiyut sat again to agree that a child who could not only destroy the sport of the Guardian of the Poor, but could also drag the village honour through the mud, despite munificent inducements toward decency, must be possessed of a devil. So Nuttia was solemnly censed with red pepper and turmeric, until her yells and struggles were deemed sufficient to denote a casting out of the evil spirit. It is not in the slow-brained, calm-hearted peasant of India to be unkind to children, and so, when the function was over, Mussumât Jewun and the other deep-chested, shrill-voiced women comforted the victim with sweetmeats and the assurance that she would be ever so much better behaved in future.

Nuttia eyed them suspiciously, but ate her sweetmeats. This incident did not increase her confidence in humanity; on the other hand, the attitude of the brute creation was a sore disappointment to her. She might have had a heart instinct with greed of capture and sudden death, instead of that dim desire of companionship, for all the notice taken by the birds, and the squirrels, and the rats, of her outstretched handful of crumbs. She would sit for long hours, silent as a little bronze image set in the sunshiny sand; then in a rage, she would fling the crumbs at the timid creatures, and go home to the dogs and the buffaloes. They at least were not afraid of her; but then they were afraid of nobody, and Nuttia wanted something of her very own.

One day she found it. It was only an old bed-leg, but to the eye of faith an incarnation. For the leg of an Indian bed is not unlike a huge ninepin, and even a Western imagination can detect the embryo likeness between a ninepin and the human form divine. Man has a head, so has a ninepin; and if humanity is to wear petticoats one solid leg is quite as good as two--nay, better, since it stands more firmly. Arms were of course wanting, but the holes ready cut in the oval centre for the insertion of the bed-frame formed admirable sockets for two straight pieces of bamboo. At this stage Nuttia's treasure presented the appearance of a sign-post; but the passion of creation was on the child, and a few hours afterwards something comically, yet pitifully, like the Legacy herself stared back at her from that humble studio among the dirt-heaps--a shag of goat's hair glued on with prickly-pear juice, two lovely black eyes drawn with Mussumât Jewun's khol pencil, a few blue beads, a scanty petticoat and veil filched from the child's own garments.

Nuttia, inspired by the recollection of a tinsel-decorated bride in Big Bhâmaniwallah, called her creature Sirdar Begum on the spot. Then she hid her away in a tussock of tiger-grass beyond the thorn enclosures, and strove to go her evening rounds as though nothing had happened. Yet it was as if an angel from heaven had stepped down to take her by the hand. Henceforward she was never to be alone. All through the silent sunny days, as she watched the big black buffaloes grazing on the muddy flats--for Nuttia was advanced to the dignity of a herd-girl by this time--Sirdar Begum was with her as guide, counsellor, and friend. Whether the doll fared best with a heart's whole devotion poured out on her wooden head, or whether Nuttia's part in giving was more blessed, need not be considered; the result to both being a steady grin on a broad round face. But there was another result also--Nuttia began to develop a taste for pure virtue. Perhaps it was the necessity of posing before Sirdar Begum as infallible joined to the desire of keeping that young person's conduct up to heroic pitch, which caused the sudden rise in principle. At all events the Legacy's cattle became renowned as steady milkers, and the amount of butter she managed to twirl out of the sour curds satisfied even Mussumât Jewun's demands; whereupon the other herds looked at her askance, and muttered an Indian equivalent of seven devils. Then the necessity for amusing the doll led Nuttia into lingering round the little knots of story-tellers who sat far on into the night, discoursing of jins and ghouls, of faithful lovers, virtuous maidens, and the beauties of holiness. Down on the edge of the big stream, with the water sliding by, Nuttia rehearsed all these wonders to her adored bed-leg until, falling in love with righteousness, she took to telling the truth.

It was a fatal mistake in a cattle-lifting district, and Bhâmaniwallah-khurd lay in the very centre of that maze of tamarisk jungle, quicksand, and stream, which forms the cattle-thief's best refuge. So Bahâdur, and Jodha, and Boota, together with many another honest man, made a steady income by levying black-mail on those who sought safety within their boundaries; and this without in any way endangering their own reputations. All that had to be done was to obliterate strange tracks by sending their own droves in the right direction and thereafter to keep silence. And every baby in both Bhâmaniwallahs knew that hoof-prints were not a legitimate subject for conversation; all save Nuttia, and she--as luck would have it--was a herd-girl! They tried beating this sixth sense into her, but it was no use, and so whenever the silver-fringed turban, white cotton gloves, and clanking sword of the native Inspector of Police were expected in the village, they used to send the Legacy away to the back of beyont,--right away to the Luckimpura island maybe, to reach which she had to hold on to the biggest buffalo's tail, and thus, with Sirdar Begum tied securely to its horns, and her own little black head bobbing up and down in its wake, cross the narrow stream; after which the three would spread themselves out to dry on the hot sand. Nuttia took a great fancy to the island, and many a time when she might have driven the herds to nearer pastures, preferred the long low stretches of Luckimpura where a flush of green lingered even in the droughts of April.

But even there on one very hot day scarcely a blade was to be found, and Nuttia, careful of her beasts, and noting the lowness of the river, gathered them round her with the herdsman's cry, and drove them to the further brink, intending to take them across to a smaller island beyond. To her surprise they stood knee-deep in the water immovable, impassive, noses in air, with long curled horns lying on their necks.

The Legacy shaded her eyes to see more clearly. Nothing was to be seen but the swift shallow stream, the level sand, and gleams of water stretching away to the horizon. Something had frightened them--but what? She gave up the puzzle, and with Sirdar Begum bolt upright before her sat on a snag, dangling her feet over the stream for the sake of the cool air which seemed to rise from the river.

The buffaloes roamed restlessly about, disturbed doubtless by the cloud of flies. The sun beat down ineffectually on the doll's fuzzy head, but it pierced Nuttia's thick pate, making her nod drowsily. Her voice recounting the thrilling adventures of brave Bhopalutchi died away into a sigh of sleep. So there was nothing left but the doll's wide unwinking eyes to keep watch over the world.

What was that? Something cold, icy-cold! Nuttia woke with a start. One brown heel had touched the water; she looked down at it, then swiftly around her. The buffaloes huddled by the ford had ceased to graze, and a quiver of light greeted her glance at the purple horizon. She sprang to her feet, and breaking off a root from the snag, held it to the dimpling water. The next instant a scared face looked at the horizon once more. The river was rising fast, rising as she had never seen it rise before. Yet in past years she had witnessed many a flood--floods that had swept away much of the arable land, and driven the villagers to till new soil thrown up nearer the high bank. Ay! and driven many of them to seek new homes beside the new fields, until Bhâmaniwallah-khurd had dwindled away to a few houses, a very few, and these on that hot April day deserted for the most part, since all the able-bodied men and women were away at the harvest. Even the herds had driven their cattle northwards, hoping to come in for some of the lively bustle of the fields. So there remained none save Nuttia on the Luckimpura island, and Mussumât Jewun with her new baby and the old hag who nursed her, in the reed huts. All this came to the girl's memory as the long low cry of the herd rose on the hot air, and with Sirdar Begum close clasped in her veil she drove the big buffalo Moti into the stream. How cold the water was--cold as the snows from which it came! The Legacy had not lived in the lap of the river for so long without learning somewhat of its ways. She knew of the frost-bound sources whence it flowed and of the disastrous floods which follow, beneath a cloudless sky, on unusual heat or unusual rain in those mountain fastnesses. The coming storm whose arch of cloud, shimmering with sheet-lightning had crept beyond the line of purple haze, was nothing; that was not the nightmare of the river-folk.

She stood for a moment when dry land was reached, hesitating whether to strike straight for the high bank or make for the village lying a mile distant. Some vague instinct of showing Sirdar Begum she was not afraid, made her choose the latter course, though most of the herd refused to follow her decision and broke away. She collected her few remaining favourites, and with cheerful cries plunged into the tamarisk jungle. Here, shut out from sight, save of the yielding bushes, her thoughts went far afield. What if the old nullah between the reed huts and the rising ground were to fill? What if the low levels between that rising ground and the high bank were to flood? And every one beyond in the yellow corn, except Mai Jewun and people who did not count,--babies, and old women, and the crippled girl in the far hut! Only herself and Sirdar Begum to be brave, for Mai Jewun was sick.

"Wake up! Wake up! Mai Jewun! the floods are out!" broke in on the new-born baby's wail as Nuttia's broad, scared face shut out the sunlight from the door.

"Go away, unlucky daughter of a bad mother," grumbled Jewun drowsily. "Dost wish to cast thy evil eye on my heart's delight? Go, I say."

"Yea! go!" grumbled the old nurse, cracking her fingers. "Sure some devil possesseth thee to tell truth or lies at thy own pleasure."

But the crippled girl spinning in the far hut had heard the flying feet, caught the excited cry, and now, crawling on her knees to the door, threw up her hands and shrieked aloud. The water stood ankle-deep among the tamarisk roots, and from its still pool tiny tongues licked their way along the dry sand.

"The flood! the flood!" The unavailing cry rang out as the women huddled together helplessly.

"Mai Jewun! there is time," came the Legacy's eager voice. "Put the baby down, and help. I saw them do it at Luckimpura that time they took the cattle over the deep stream, and Bahâdur beat me for seeing it. Quick! quick!"

Simple enough, yet in its very simplicity lay their only chance of escape. A string-woven bed buoyed up with the bundles of reeds cut ready for re-thatching, and on this frail raft four people--nay five! for first of all with jealous care Nuttia placed her beloved Sirdar Begum in safety, wrapping her up in the clothes she discarded in favour of free nakedness.

Quick! Quick! if the rising ground is to be gained and the levels beyond forded ere the water is too deep! Moti and a companion yoked by plough-ropes to the bed, wade knee-deep, hock-deep, into the stream, and now with the old, cheerful cry Nuttia, clinging to their tails and so guiding them, urges the beasts deeper still. The stream swirls past holding them with it, though they breast it bravely. A log, long stranded in some shallow, dances past, shaving the raft by an inch. Then an alligator, swept from its moorings and casting eyes on Nuttia's brown legs, makes the beasts plunge madly. A rope breaks,--the churned water sweeps over the women,--the end is near,--when another frantic struggle leaves Moti alone to her task. The high childish voice calling on her favourite's courage rises again and again; but the others, cowed into silence, clutch together with hid faces, till a fresh plunge loosens their tongues once more. It is Moti finding foothold, and they are safe--so far.

"Quick! Mai Jewun," cries Nuttia, as her companions stand looking fearfully over the waste of shallows before them. She knows from the narrowness of the ridge they have reached that time is precious. "We must wade while we can, saving Moti for the streams. Take up the baby, and I--"

Her hands, busy on the bed, stilled themselves,--her face grew grey,--she turned on them like a fury. "Sirdar Begum! I put her there--where is Sirdar Begum?"

"That bed-leg!" shrilled the mother, tucking up her petticoats for greater freedom. "There was no room, and Heart's Delight was cold. Bah! wood floats."

"Hull-lal-lal-a lalla la!" The herdsman's cry was the only answer. Moti has faced the flood again, but this time with a light load, for the baby nestling amid Nuttia's clothes is the only occupant of the frail raft.

"My son! My son! Light of mine eyes! Core of my heart! Come back! Come back!"

But the little black head drifting down stream behind the big one never turned from its set purpose. Wood floated, and so might babies. Why not?

Why not, indeed! But, as a matter of fact, Mai Jewun was right. A dilapidated bed-leg was picked up on a sand-bank miles away when the floods subsided; and Moti joined the herd next day to chew the cud of her reflections contentedly. But the village Legacy and Heart's Delight remained somewhere seeking for something,--that something, doubtless, which had turned the bed-leg into Sirdar Begum.