Alive in the Jungle: A Story for the Young

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"Here is the child, Mr. Desborough," cried Oliver. Page [160]

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ALIVE
IN THE JUNGLE

A Story for the Young

BY
ELEANOR STREDDER

Author of "Jack and his Ostrich,"
"Archie's Find"
etc.

"In the night, O the night.

When the wolves are howling."

TENNYSON.

T. NELSON AND SONS
London, Edinburgh, and New York
1892

Contents

1. [THE OLD GRAY WOLF]
2. [IN PURSUIT]
3. [HOW THE SEARCH ENDED]
4. [THE WOLF'S LAIR]
5. [NOAK-HOLLY]
6. [AWAY TO THE HILLS]
7. [THE RANA'S SONS]
8. [THE INVITATION]
9. [OLIVER AND HIS UNCLE]
10. [A VISIT TO THE RANA'S CASTLE]
11. [THE FOOTPRINT]
12. [BEATING THE KOOND]
13. [CAUGHT IN A TRAP]
14. [THE HOMEWARD ROAD]
15. [A LITTLE SAVAGE]
16. [THE CONCLUSION]

ALIVE IN THE JUNGLE.

CHAPTER I.

THE OLD GRAY WOLF.

Night was brooding over the wide and swampy Bengal plain. The moon had sunk low in the west, and was hiding behind a bank of threatening clouds. Darkness and shadow covered the sleeping world around. But the stilly quiet which marked "the darkest hour of all the night" was broken by the fierce growling of a tiger and a buffalo, fighting furiously on the open highroad, within a dozen yards of Mr. Desborough's indigo factory.

The jackal pack were gathering among the distant hills, already scenting their prey. On they came, rushing down the nearest valley in answer to their leader's call—shrieking, wailing, howling in their haste to be in time to pounce upon the tiger's leavings; an ever-increasing wave of sound that startled the weary factory-workers, sleeping in their mud-walled huts under the mango trees. The pack sweep round the straw-thatched sheds belonging to the factory, and gather in front of Mr. Desborough's house.

This was a large one-storied building, looking very much like a Swiss cottage, with its gabled roof and white-painted walls. The broad eaves projected so far beyond the walls that they covered the veranda, which ran right round the house. Like the sheds of the factory, it was thatched. Beautiful climbing plants festooned the columns which supported the veranda, and flung their long trailing arms across the pointed gables. A whole colony of wild birds nestle in the reedy thatch, and find out quiet corners in the cool shadow of that wide veranda. A pair of owls are wheeling round and round. Kites, hoopoes, and blue jays find such comfortable homes beneath Mr. Desborough's eaves, and bring up such numerous families, that the whole place seems alive with twittering wings and chirping voices. But now the flying-foxes, which have hung all day head downwards from the trees like so many black bags, are screaming and chattering at their shrillest.

The hot May night seems more oppressive than ever. There is neither peace nor rest. Every door and window in the bungalow is wide open, for within the heat is intense.

The youngest child is ill with fever, and cannot sleep.

Like so many English fathers and mothers living in India, Mr. and Mrs. Desborough have lost several of their children. Grief for those that were taken from them makes them watch over the dear ones that are left with nervous anxiety. Mr. Desborough had put up a tent on the lawn, hoping the little sufferer might find rest in the fresher air, surrounded by the cool night-breezes and the sweet scent of the flowers.

The poor child was dozing on its mother's lap when the yell of the jackals arose. They were quite safe in their tent; for a mat was tied across the door, and nothing could get in to hurt them. But how was their boy to sleep in such a noise?

The fierce crescendo was reaching its loudest, when Mr. Desborough came out with his loaded gun in his hand, and fired it into the air, hoping the sound of a shot would scare the jackals away. He was right: the pack swept past with a mad rush, helter-skelter on the tiger's track. He paused on the steps of the veranda, and looked cautiously around him.

The dark shadows of the trees were thrown across the dewy grass. Overgrown bushes, swaying in the night-wind, seemed to take to themselves fantastic shapes. His garden might well be described as one wild tangle of flowers. Roses of every shade, carnations, mignonnette, petunias, myrtles, choked each other: tall scarlet lilies and pomegranate flowers caught the twining honeysuckle, and taught its trailing branches to kiss the ground. Amidst this luxuriant profusion, in the glamour of a darkened heaven, it was no wonder Mr. Desborough did not distinguish the flick of a tawny tail, creeping stealthily behind a giant rhododendron. At the sound of the shot the old gray wolf skulked down amidst the folded flowers; and the father, after exchanging a word with his wife, went back to his bed comforted, for his darling, his little Horace, was conscious—yes, conscious—and crying for his twin-brother Carlyon. Racy and Carl, as they were usually called, had never before been parted.

Poor little Racy had not known much about it when his mother sent Carl into another room, and refused to let Kathleen give him one good-night kiss. Kathleen was their only sister—a soft-eyed, fragile girl, about nine years old. She had wept with her father and mother over an empty bassinet; and so, when two little brothers were given to her in one day, her delight knew no bounds. From the hour of their birth she became their devoted slave.

Carl, in the full wilfulness of his second summer, was too little to understand the reason why he was banished from his mother's lap and parted from Racy. He strutted about in his indignant anger, looking as red as a turkey-cock; and no one but Kathleen could do anything with him.

She invented some fresh amusement every time the clamour for Racy was renewed. Her last great success was the manufacture of a bridle of red ribbon for Sailor, a big black retriever, the favourite playfellow of the twins.

Kathleen, too, was wakened by the yelling of the jackals. She heard her father's step in the veranda, and listened to the sound of his gun as if it were a waking dream.

A voracious mosquito, which had crept inside the net curtains which enveloped her little bed, stung her cheek. Up started Kathleen, and called to the ayah, or native nurse, who slept on a mat by Carlyon's cot. Yes, there was something the matter; she was sure of it now. A small dusky hand put back the thin curtains; a gentle, smiling black face peeped at her; and cold water was sprinkled over the flushed forehead and burning pillow, until Kathleen felt refreshed. Her winged tormentor was caught and killed, and the ayah would have left her; but no. Kathleen was broad awake now. She was thinking about her father. Something was the matter. Racy was worse. She begged her ayah to go and see.

Carl was safe in his cot on the other side of the room, forgetting his baby troubles in happy slumber. So the ayah, who fully shared her little mistress's anxiety, ventured outside the curtained screen, or purdah, as they called it, which was drawn half across the open doorway. The room was large and lofty. It was at the corner of the house, with doors opening into the veranda on two sides. This helped to keep it bearable in a usual way, with the help of a great white calico fan fixed to the ceiling. This was called the punkah. Two of the native servants were kept in the veranda all night to work it by turns. They were the punkah coolies. One of them was fast asleep on his mat, and the other was nodding as he lazily pulled the rope which moved the fan. They assured the ayah all was right. No one was afraid of the jackals. They seldom hurt any one unless they were interfered with.

Whilst she was speaking, Kathleen grew impatient, and, persuaded that Racy was worse, she threw aside the thin sheet, her only covering, and ran to the other door. She was not tall enough to look over the purdah, and slipped softly into the bathroom adjoining. All the doors had been set wide open, so she made no noise to waken her little brother. There was no glass in the window of the bathroom. It was latticed, but it too was wide open, and the blind was down. These blinds, or tatties, are made of grass, and are kept damp to cool the air passing through them.

The troubled child managed to unfasten it and push it just a little aside. There was the tent gleaming white beneath the spreading trees. She could hear her mother singing some soothing lullaby. The two tall carriage-horses were cropping the tender buds from the hedge of roses which divided the garden from their paddock. She could see the gleam of the lilied pool beneath the farthest trees, with the fire-flies dancing round its banks like an ever-moving illumination. She heard the cries of the tiger and the deep bellow of the vanquished buffalo, and ran back to her bed in a fright, leaving the blind awry.

They were safe from the tiger; for a tiger always turns away from a fence, and Mr. Desborough's grounds were surrounded by a high bank, with a low stone wall on the top, shutting in garden, paddock, and stable-yard, with only one gate for the carriage, and that was locked. How had the wolf got in—that grim, gaunt creature, which still sat washing its torn shoulder behind the rhododendron unseen by any one? It had had a round with the buffalo before the tiger came out for his midnight stroll, and got that ugly scratch from her antagonist's horn.

So the wolf left the buffalo to the tiger, and plunged into the stream which fed the pool. The water was low, and the wolf was wary. The dive was pleasant. A scramble up the opposite bank landed her in Mr. Desborough's garden. Kathleen's peep-hole did not escape the wolf's observation. She saw the child's white face, and thought of her half-grown cubs. She dashed through the window, under the loosened blind, leaped clear over the row of tall earthenware water-jars which stood before it, and followed the child into the sleeping-room. Her unerring scent guided her to the cot where Carl lay tossing. He had thrown off the thin covering, and was fighting away the mosquito-net which enveloped his cot. She seized the child in her teeth, and was over the purdah with a bound.

Kathleen's wild shriek of terror called back the ayah.

The first fault gray of the summer twilight entered with her, and rested on Kathleen's long fair hair, but the empty bed in the other corner was still in shadow.

"Carl! Carl!" gasped Kathleen, and fainted in her nurse's arms.

The hubbub that arose among the coolies who were sleeping in the veranda, the frantic cries of "Sahib! sahib!" brought Mr. Desborough to the scene of dismay.

He had reloaded his gun, and snatched it up as he came, out of all patience at the ill-timed noise, when he had enjoined silence on every one whilst his darling boy was sleeping at last—a sleep which, undisturbed, meant life.

Seeing nothing to account for the consternation among his servants, he was on the point of refusing to listen to their entreaty.

"Shoot, sahib, shoot! a booraba by the nursery!"

"A booraba—a wolf!" he repeated, discharging his gun into the air with the rapidity of lightning, as anger changed to fear.

"Unloose the dogs!" he cried, preparing to give it chase, as his keen eye detected a break in the bushes of the garden, and the trampled heads of the flowers, which marked the track of the wolf. He knew very well that not one of his Hindu servants would dare to kill it, even if they had the chance. It was a matter of conscience with them. It was a thing they would not, dare not do, under any circumstances; but they flew like the wind to obey his commands.

The hounds came bounding round him, and were soon on the trail of their midnight visitor. They scented the wolf to the edge of the pool, and then paused at fault, poking with their noses among the water-lilies, and looking round at their master with short, angry barks.

Evidently the wolf had once more taken to the water, and the scent was lost. Mr. Desborough saw something moving on the other side of the pool, among the reeds and grasses.

He quickly readjusted the barrel of his gun, and was preparing to fire, when his chuprassie, the Hindu servant who carried messages in the day and watched the premises at night, caught his arm, exclaiming, "No, no, sahib! no shoot booraba."

Mr. Desborough shook him off angrily, and levelled his gun.

"Shoot booraba, shoot baby!" cried out another of his servants, who had just overtaken him. The poor fellow was trembling like a leaf.—-"Come to the beebee, Kathleen!" he entreated. "Come quickly!"

The truth flashed upon the father's mind—the wolf had already entered his nursery. He rushed to his wife's tent. His servants stopped him.

"The mem-sahib" (for so they called their mistress)—"the mem-sahib knows nothing yet. Spare her till we are sure."

One stride, and Mr. Desborough was over the veranda railing, parting the chintz curtains of the nursery purdah. The ayah threw herself at his feet, and began to tear her hair.

Now Mr. Desborough knew very well that his black servants exaggerated dreadfully. Their excited imaginations magnified everything. It is the way in the East, and a bad way it is. Having had two or three false alarms, he never believed more than half they told him. Could he believe them now? "Where is Kathleen?" he demanded sternly.

In another minute Kathleen's face was buried on his shoulder, as she sobbed out her piteous story. "A dog, papa—a huge, horrid, lean, lank dog—rushed out of the bathroom, and ran away with Carl."

CHAPTER II.

IN PURSUIT.

It was all too true. The punkah coolie was fanning an empty cot—the child was gone.

With Kathleen fainting in her lap, even the ayah had not missed poor Carl in the moment of her return. It was but a moment ere the alarm was raised, yet the wolf had carried off her prey.

Charging the servants on no account to let the mother discover that her boy was missing, until he returned, Mr. Desborough started in pursuit.

Like most English gentlemen in India, he was a keen sportsman, and loved to hunt the wild hogs in the bamboo swamps, with a party of his friends, and plenty of native trackers and beaters to find the game and drive it out of the thickets.

But he dare not wait to call his friends to his help. He started forth alone with his coolies, to find which way the wolf had gone.

Tall trees were growing on either side of the high-road, upon which his gate opened. A broad ditch behind them drained the road in the rainy season, when floods arose so easily. It was many feet deep; and now the water ran low between its banks, dried up by the great heat. The jackal pack had retired with the growing daylight; the tiger had slunk away before the rising sun. Well might Mr. Desborough shudder and turn away from the remnants of the dead buffalo, as he trembled for the fate of his child. The country all around him was well cultivated. Rice and dall (another kind of grain much grown by the Hindu villagers) covered large fields along the course of the stream. They were interspersed by clumps of trees and groves of date-palms growing amidst patches of jungle and tangle.

But the increasing heat had reduced the watercourse to a succession of glistening pools, connected by a muddy ditch.

Already the hounds were busy among the fringe of bushes which overhung its margin. Mr. Desborough mounted his horse, and galloped after them, with the broad white hat belonging to the lost child in his hand.

He soon came up with the dogs, and whistling them to his side, he leaned down from his saddle, and made them smell the hat and sun-veil (or puggaree) little Carl had worn the evening before.

They sniffed it well over, looked up in their master's face with their keen, intelligent eyes, and started once again in swift pursuit.

They had passed the closed gates of the indigo factory, but encountered one or two of the native workers there, who had risen with the sun, and were watering their fields and gardens before the business of the day began. The district was studded with wells. The water was drawn by bullocks into huge skins.

But they left their skins on the brink of the well, and joined the servants, who were throwing stones among the bushes, and howling with all their might, to make the wolf show.

The noise brought out old Gobur from his little homestead by the riverside. Mr. Desborough paused by the bamboo paling which surrounded the little enclosure, which was neither yard nor garden, but partly both. He knew the aged Hindu had been a chakoo, or look-out, in his prime. The different hunting-parties in the neighbourhood used to hire Gobur to go before them into the jungle, to watch which way the wild beasts were roaming.

He was the very man to help him.

Within the bamboo fence was a tangle of wild roses and creepers, twining about the roots of the luxuriant fruit-trees shading the low mud hut in which the old man lived; a tiny well sparkled like crystal in the rosy light.

The old man was gathering sticks to light his fire in the one clear space beyond his trees.

He threw them to a graceful dusky figure just peeping out of the door of the hut, and came to the sahib's assistance. The shouts of Mr. Desborough's servants, as they hurled about the biggest stones they could raise, had told him only too plainly what had happened.

All the native Bengalese knew well the dangerous propensity of the wolves in May, and guarded their babies with double vigilance.

He knew the hat in the father's hand, and with scant words but many gesticulations tried to make him understand the wolf was probably hiding in one of the coverts near. If they scared her out, she might drop the child; for it was that one dreaded month in all the year when the wolves take home their prey alive to their half-grown cubs.

There was hope in the old man's words, and the father caught at it. Yet he dared not fire into the dwarf cypress, where they all fancied the wolf might be. No; his gun was useless on his shoulder, for he might shoot his child. He could only follow the example of his coolies, and join his shouts to theirs, until they wakened the echoes. Jackal, wolf, and night-hawk had alike disappeared with the rising dawn. Gobur warned him a tiger might yet be moving, as the morning breeze blew cool and fresh after the sultry night.

"Well, Desborough," demanded the cheery voice of an English neighbour, "up with the sunrise, like myself, to catch a mouthful of fresher air after frying indoors all night? But what on earth is all this row?"

The speaker was an English officer who was taking his morning ride betimes, foreseeing still greater heat as the day advanced. He was followed by his syce, or native groom.

"The heat has done it," he exclaimed, as he heard the father's piteous tale. "The streams are drying up among the hills, and the wild beasts are driven to the cultured plains to seek for water. I heard a tiger grunting all night in the river; many may be lingering in the thicket for their mid-day sleep. Poor fellow! you'll see your baby no more."

The kind-hearted major turned his head away, he could not look the distracted father in the face, as he added, "Be a man, Desborough. Thank God for this fresh breeze; it will save your other child—think of that."

But his syce pressed forward, with a low salaam, to the unhappy sahib, to assure him he heard the cry of a child from the grass by the river, pointing as he spoke to a waving forest of graceful feathery blades, full twenty feet high.

"Cries of monkeys!" interrupted his master angrily, provoked to see his poor friend tantalized with hopes which seemed to him so utterly delusive.

He reined in his horse by his side, and tried to reason with him on the probable fate of his child. They passed a group of sleepy vultures, perched upon a boulder stone. If the poor baby had been dropped living amidst the fields, how could it escape destruction? Even Mr. Desborough was afraid to place much trust in the syce's words, with the ever-increasing chattering of monkeys and screaming of birds. He looked at the wide plains around him, and at the great herds of graceful, delicate-limbed, smoke-coloured cattle, which were now being slowly driven out to pasture. For the brief tropical twilight was over, and day had fairly begun. The air was full of cries. The voices of the night had but given place to the myriad voices of the day. Was it possible for any one to distinguish between them? He heard, or seemed as if he heard, the shriek of his child mingling with every sound, and he knew it was not real. He heard it amidst the bellow of the fierce, ungainly-looking buffaloes, who were marching forth in troops from many a native village, followed by flocks of goats and bleating sheep.

With a hope which Mr. Desborough said hoarsely "was no hope," he rallied his men to beat the huge thicket of grass, and drive out any living thing lurking within it. Afraid of hurling stones at a venture into such a tangled mass, the coolies armed themselves with long sticks, which they struck with a sharp, ringing sound on the bark of the nearest trees. A scampering was heard. The grass swayed hither and thither. There was a cry.

"Nothing but the scream of a frightened pig," persisted the major. "It is the very spot for a wild boar's lair."

He reined in his horse, and stationed himself where he could command a good view of the thicket. Mr. Desborough had chosen his post already, on the opposite side, and was watching as if he were all eye, all ear. Old Gobur had gone round to the back of the thicket. Nothing could escape them rushing from it.

"Not too near," shouted the major to his friend. "Have a care for your own life! No one knows yet what it is we have dislodged."

As they watched the heaving grass, another cry arose in the distance, prolonged and hideous. But the friends knew well what it meant. A party of travellers were approaching, and their tired bearers were calling out for a relay of men from the village to come and take their places.

"Ho, coolie, coolie, wallah! ho-o-o-o-o!" seemed to ring through the air from all points, confusing every other sound. Mr. Desborough's eye never moved from the heaving mass before him. Out rushed a whole family of wild pigs—a "sounder," as the major called it. They were led by a grim old boar with giant tusks, the very picture of savage ferocity. He glared around him, ready to charge the enemy who had dared to disturb him. He was followed by pigs of every age and size, from a venerable sow, tottering along from her weight of years, to squealing, squeaking infants, who could scarcely keep pace with their mothers. Oh, the screaming and the grunting, the snorting and chasing, as the whole family of pigs rushed across the opening towards the nearest mango grove or tope!

Aware of the danger of facing such a formidable charge, both gentlemen wheeled round, and prepared to fire if necessary. The major was inwardly groaning for the boar-spear that was standing idle in the corner of his bungalow. He looked up, and perceived the party of travellers coming along one of the narrow paths which divided the rice-fields, just in front of the bristling array of fiery eyes and curling tails. He saw a lady's dandy—that is, a kind of canoe-shaped seat with a canopy—carried on two men's shoulders. There it was in the line of the angry pigs. The danger to the unwary occupants was imminent. The little cavalcade had halted in dismay. The major thought of the naked legs of the bearers, who wore nothing but their white calico waist-cloths and cotton turbans, and galloped to the rescue, firing as he rode, to make the old boar change his course.

The weary bearers shrank back in terror, raising a wild howl for assistance, when a small lad, who was riding a little pony in the rear, pressed forward through the standing rice which had hitherto concealed him, and planted himself in the front of his companions, with no better defence than a huge bough he had broken from the nearest tree.

"Well done, my young hero!" cried the major as he rode up to them and waited; for dandy and bearers had retreated behind the screen which the green ears afforded, and safety was best secured by silence. The furious boar came on, foaming and champing his enormous tusks; but the well-timed shots urged him forward. He crossed the path of the travellers within a dozen yards of the hole into which the boy had pushed them, with nothing but the growing rice-straw for a shelter. The stampede of the pigs passed over. The boy still stood sentinel behind his bough.

"Trying the trick of Dunsinane," said the major, with a laugh he intended to prove reassuring to the unseen occupant of the dandy.

"Well content if they do take me for a young mango sapling," answered the little stranger, in the shy, blunt tones of an English school-boy. His broad sun-hat hid every bit of his face except the firm-set white lips. The major had seen enough. He dismounted, and assisted in lifting the dandy out of the rice. The blades were higher than his head, and the ground was more than muddy, for the field was undergoing its morning irrigation from the nearest tank.

"Tie-tara! tie-tara!" cried the black partridges they had unceremoniously disturbed. The birds, with a tameness which astonished the young travellers, fluttered about among the rice-stalks, pecking at the curtains of the dandy.

"Oliver, Oliver! where are you?" entreated a girlish voice from within.

"Safe, my dear young lady, quite safe," reiterated the major. "Let me ask if you were intending to change coolies at Noak-holly," pointing as he spoke in the direction of the village nearest to the indigo factory. "You had better join forces with us, as we were the unfortunate cause of your alarm, having dislodged those pigs whilst searching for a lost child."

"A lost child!" re-echoed the voice within. "Oliver, Oliver, can we help to find it?"

At that moment a great shout of triumph arose around the grass clump, and with one accord the little party pressed forward to ascertain its cause.

The sharp report of a gun sent the major spurring in advance. Had his friend forgot his caution? How had he dared to fire?

Another moment and he saw Mr. Desborough wheel round, raise himself slightly in his stirrups, and discharge his second barrel at a dusky speck emerging from the tufted grass. The tall blades swayed and quivered with the report. There was a smothered shuffling sound, a heavy thud upon the ground, a rustling in the quivering grasses. The native grooms ran forward eagerly, and dragged out the body of a satiated wolf.

"A cool shot, Desborough," observed the major.

"It may save another parent such a pang as mine, but it cannot give me back my child," groaned Mr. Desborough.

CHAPTER III.

HOW THE SEARCH ENDED.

Their work was not yet done. There were many narrow paths leading into the clump, which the wild beasts had made for their own convenience. Some of the grass had been cut down by the wild boar's tusks, and some of it had been trampled under-foot. Mr. Desborough dismounted, determined to penetrate the tangled mass, to see if any vestige of his little darling was to be found there.

The major followed him; old Gobur entered by another path.

"Let me go with you," entreated Oliver, as the coolies set down his sister's dandy under a tree, and flung themselves upon the ground to rest, waiting until some of the men in the nearest village should answer their summons, and present themselves according to custom, prepared to take their places.

Oliver had already picked up enough Indi to make his request intelligible; but forcing his way into the twisted grass was very trying. There were sudden drops into holes and unexpected scrambles up steep banks; whilst the twisted stalks, interlaced with most luxuriant wild-flowers, presented an impervious wall on either side, diversified by tufts of wild arrowroot and an occasional bramble. Now and then old Gobur paused to point out a porcupine's burrow, or to drag his young companion aside, as a hissing snake wound its green length across the path; whilst the impudent monkeys chattered and screamed as they swung themselves high over Oliver's head, rejoicing in the sudden departure of their more formidable neighbours the great pig family. Bright and beautiful birds peeped at him out of their nests, unscared, with that happy boldness common to all the feathered tribes in India; because no Hindu boy would ever dream of hurting or teasing any living thing. As for old Gobur, he darted about like a monkey, dragging Oliver along with him until they reached a sort of grassy tent in the very centre of the clump. It was the wild-hog's lair, which they love to make in the midst of "thatching-grass," as Gobur called it.

The boy went down on his hands and knees and crept inside.

It was a sort of grassy tent which its hoggish owner had made by cutting down some of the grass with his teeth. One half he had trampled under-foot, and the other half he had heaved aloft with his head, as he walked round and round in a circle, until his grassy cave was complete.

An aspiring porcupine was just disputing with a giant rat which of the two had the better right to this deserted mansion, when Oliver poked in his head. Forthwith the rat, with his twelve-inch length of tail switching from side to side, made a grab at his hair; and the porcupine, bristling with spears, rushed at him. Oliver received the charge on his arm, which he hastily extended to save his face.

Gobur pulled him backwards; but the resolute boy refused to cry out, although the blood was streaming from his elbow to his wrist.

Oliver was wofully crestfallen at this unexpected disaster. There was nothing for it but to retrace his steps.

His silken shirt was torn to shreds, and his hat was left in pawn with the rat. His knees were bruised, with slipping into holes and crawling out again.

Old Gobur began to think it wiser to extricate his unknown companion than to continue a search which he knew to be utterly hopeless. When they got free of the grass at last, it was some small consolation to Oliver to find they had penetrated farther into the thicket than any one else. Mr. Desborough and the major owned themselves baffled, and were now trusting to the sagacity of the dogs.

Poor Oliver's appearance attracted Mr. Desborough's attention.

"Who is that boy?" he asked.

"A young stranger who joined in the search and got scratched by a sahee," explained the grooms.

Such being the case, Anglo-Indian ideas of hospitality compelled Mr. Desborough to offer him a bath and breakfast if he would return with them to Noak-holly and have his arm bound up.

The major turned surgeon, and offered to do the job for him on the spot. He had taken to the boy, and wanted to know a little more about him.

One of the syces pinned up a large leaf with thorns, and fetched some water in it from the nearest well. The major tore his own handkerchief into strips, and bound up the lacerated arm with a wet bandage.

Taking the opportunity to satisfy his curiosity at the same time, he quickly ascertained that Oliver St. Faine and his sister Bona had come out to join an uncle, a deputy-judge, who was to have sent to meet them. They had travelled from Calcutta in a big box, with shutters in the sides, so the boy asserted, with a grimace at the recollection.

"Oh, of course," remarked the major; "that was what we call a dak-gharri, our Eastern equivalent to a post-chaise. Why did you leave it?"

"Because we were to leave at the last government bungalow, and take a short cut across the country to my uncle's; but it seems to be one of those short things which grow longer with cutting," answered the boy dryly. "There has been a muddle and a mistake. The gentleman who took care of us on our journey could come no farther, and some one was to have met us. But that some one did not come; so he got the pony for me, and hired these fellows to carry my sister, and I believe they have lost their way."

"Then we will put you in it again. Come on with us to Noak-holly; and when I have done all I can in this melancholy business to help poor Desborough, I will take you myself to Judge St. Faine in the cool of the evening," said the major.

Kathleen was watching for her father's return. Her sad eyes grew bright with excitement and hope as she heard the gate open. She was sitting by the gardener, in the midst of a heap of roses and carnations which he had just flung down, on the shady side of the veranda; for India is a very land of flowers. He had brought in his baskets full, as usual, to adorn the rooms, and was sitting cross-legged in his snowy turban, weaving them with his dexterous fingers into wreaths and bouquets of surpassing loveliness. But the sweet perfume and the fresh, cool touch of the leaves, which Kathleen loved so well, had lost their charm. The roses fell from her lap, and she trampled recklessly upon the glorious azaleas with which he had been trying to divert her.

She sprang into her father's arms. "Horace is better!" she cried. "He has slept; he will get well, papa. But have you found Carl?"

Her father pressed her to him and turned his head away as he answered, "We have been searching everywhere. No, darling; we have not found him yet. These people must all have breakfast. There! go to that young lady. In mamma's absence I must leave her to you.—I dare not tell her the worst," he added in a low aside to the major as he turned towards the tent, where the hardest task of all awaited him.

In shy obedience to her father's wishes, Kathleen followed the major to the gate. As Bona St. Faine was lifted out of her dandy, she too whispered something about the sincere sympathy of a stranger, and her exceeding reluctance to intrude at such a time.

The major thought it a pretty little speech from a stranger; so he engaged her forthwith to do her best to comfort his little fairy Kathleen.

Bona promised readily; and Oliver, who gave no promise, did still more. They took the little girl between them, and would have led her to the house; but she hung back, intent upon the coolies, who were bringing home the dead wolf. She slipped her hand away from Miss St. Faine and ran to the gate.

"Fetch her back, Oliver," whispered his sister. "It is dreadful to let her see that brute. You say it has devoured her brother."

But he was too late to prevent it. Kathleen was peeping through the iron-work of the gate.

"It is the wolf," he said gently. "Your father shot it. It will never frighten you again. Come and tell us all about it."

"I can't," persisted Kathleen. "Let me look." She laid her hand on the iron. It was so hot to the touch in that burning sunshine it almost blistered her fingers; but she did not heed that. "Did papa shoot the wolf?" she asked, with a painful catch in her breath between each word. "Then where is Carl?"

Oliver dare not tell her, for he had heard what her father had said to the major; and being of a straightforward turn of mind, who naturally answered yes or no to every inquiry—"I will tell you" or "I will not tell you"—he was quite at a loss for a reply, not having the least idea how to evade a question.

"Why don't you speak?" she asked desperately.

Oliver muttered something, and creaked the gate, so that she could not hear what he said.

Out she flew panting, Oliver after her.

"What could he do that for!" exclaimed his sister, considerably chagrined. "How just like a boy! He always is so stupid. I believe he wanted to have a look at the wolf himself."

The syces had laid the dead animal on the bank which ran round Mr. Desborough's compound, and were standing under the shadow of the garden trees considering it. They called to the gardener to bring them some fern leaves and bushes to cover the wolf from the sun, until they knew whether the sahib wished to preserve its skin.

It was a savage-looking brute, young, for its prevailing colour was a tawny fawn, with a little gray on its back and inside its legs.

"That is not the horrid dog that ran away with Carl!" exclaimed Kathleen. "It was not a buff dog; it was a gray dog, with a great scratch on its shoulder. I should know it anywhere. I see it now—I always see it—stealing out of the bathroom."

The gardener pressed in between and threw his load of fern leaves over it, to prevent her seeing any more of the fierce booraba. Her own favourite syce, who drove her out in her little carriage every evening, tried to lead her away. Old Gobur stopped him.

"Let the little beebee [the little lady] look."

"It will only terrify her; and the sahib will be angry," urged the syce.

"Stop!" persisted Gobur, speaking in his soft Indi, which Oliver tried hard to follow; and then the old man explained—"The colour of a wolf tells its age: they all turn gray as they grow old. If a gray wolf carried off the child, it has carried it off alive. We must search again."

At this moment Bona St. Faine appeared at the gate, and taking little Kathleen's hand in hers, led her resolutely away, threatening the servants with their master's displeasure for suffering such a child to see the dead wolf.

"How wrong of you, Oliver!" she said, glancing at her brother reproachfully.

To avoid her upbraiding, which Oliver felt he deserved, he stepped behind old Gobur, who was forcing open the wolf's mouth and examining its teeth. He sprang up excitedly and pointed to the little bits of matted hair sticking about them.

"What is that?" he asked triumphantly. "Where did that come from? The buffalo hide. The wolves as well as the jackals follow the tiger to feast on what he leaves, as every hunter knows. The little beebee is right. We must search again."

How Oliver listened! These dark-skinned men, who were chattering round him so fast, had lived in the midst of wild beasts all their lives.

One was telling of a wolf which had stolen a baby from its mother's arm as she lay sleeping.

The gardener hurried away to find his master. The coolies who had carried Bona's dandy joined in the eager discussion; some were contradicting the old man's assertion, others were asking questions none of them could answer. Had any one heard the child cry? No, not even the coolies in the veranda. Why, they kept on fanning the empty cot! The child had been spirited away in its sleep. Only a clever old wolf could have done it.

"That scratch on its shoulder—was the blood dropping from it?" asked Gobur, almost breathlessly. "Wherever a drop has fallen you will find the black ants covering it by this time. Run and look."

Up sprang Mr. Desborough's own syce, followed by half-a-dozen others, gesticulating and talking all at once at the top of their voices.

"Stop that row!" exclaimed Mr. Desborough, who was bending over the cot of his other little boy, trying to prepare its mother for the dread disclosure.

Out went the major. "Two wolves indeed! Preposterous!"

The syce pointed to the patches of tiny black ants which he had found along the veranda and across the grass, as Gobur expected.

"Sahib," he asked suggestively, "is it from the wolf or from the child?"

"From the child," answered the major, examining the rhododendron bushes, where the crushed flowers and broken stalks were thickly covered by the busy insects.

Both believed they had found the fatal spot to which the wolf had retreated.

Oliver had gone up to the fountain on the lawn, and was deluging his bandaged arm.

"Go indoors, my boy, and rest," said the major, as he passed him, "or you will suffer for it with that arm."

Oliver walked slowly on towards the veranda, examining for himself the little black patches that marked the trail of the wolf. He traced its course from the rhododendron to the window of the bathroom, then he discovered a second trail leading from the veranda to the pool.

He pointed it out to the gardener, who was returning.

"Wasn't old Gobur right after all?"

The punkah coolie joined them. He was certain he must have heard the snap of the wolf's teeth if he were behind that bush. For a wolf, they both asserted, bites with a snap, and clashes its teeth with as much noise as a steel trap. No; it had carried off the child alive to its lair.

Oliver bounded up the steps of the veranda, and ran into the hall. Kathleen was flitting restlessly from room to room.

"Be comforted, dear!" he exclaimed; "your brother is not killed. We may find him yet, alive in the jungle."

CHAPTER IV.

THE WOLF'S LAIR.

Yes, it was all true! That grim gray wolf was not seeking an early breakfast for herself, but a safe plaything for the five young wolflings which she loved so dearly. She cared but little for the scratch on her shoulder when she thought of their delight.

She snatched up Carl so stealthily, and with so soft a touch, he never wakened until he felt the cool breeze that arose with the peep of day, fanning his hot cheeks as the wolf ran swiftly on. It was too dark for him to see where he was, or he might have been frightened into fits. He put up his two little chubby hands and felt the wolf's shaggy coat. He thought it was Sailor, and threw his arm lovingly round the big throat. He was far too sleepy to take much notice.

The wolf gave him a gentle swing, as she still ran at her fastest pace,—aware, by the way in which she looked over her shoulder, that the pursuers were already on her track. She could hear the baying of the dogs, and darting down the river-bank, hid herself in a natural hollow formed by the dripping of a little spring. She laid Carl down where the cool drops trickled on his head, and he was soon asleep again, sounder than before.

The wolf knew well what she was about. In that quiet water-cradle, with long trailing creepers for fly-curtains, and the softest of mosses for a bed, the child never roused to utter a sound.

Many a native mother tries the same plan, and puts her little black baby to sleep in a shallow watercourse when the heat and the insects become intolerable, and so secures a few hours' refreshing sleep for it on the most sultry days.

The dogs lost the scent when the wolf stepped into the water, and scoured the plain beyond her retreat. Then the wary creature took up her prize once more, and doubling cleverly upon her pursuers, made her way to the hills, where her mate was keeping watch over the precious wolflings. A run of five miles through the morning air was an invigorating experience after his fretful, feverish night, and Carl waked up at last, with a stretch and a laugh, quite unconscious of his perilous position.

They had entered one of the basins scooped in the side of the hills, where the wild beasts made their retreat. The gorge was narrow at the entrance, and partly filled up by dislodged stones and fallen rocks, now overgrown with tangle and jungle, and overshadowed by spreading trees.

These places are called koonds in India; and in the rainy season are well watered by a mountain torrent, dashing and foaming from the heights above. Beneath those precipitous rocks, and through the dense foliage which clothed them, the hottest rays of the midday sun could scarcely penetrate. Now, at that early hour, it was so dark Carl could distinguish nothing but a dog-like form. He was still dreaming of his faithful Sailor, and began to struggle and kick to be set on his feet. His hands had dabbled in the wolf's blood, and he rubbed his half-open eyes, wondering more and more why his ayah did not come and make Sailor leave go of him.

The rapid exercise had made the wolf's torn shoulder burst out bleeding again, and as they forced their way through a perfect sea of grass and fern and flowers, under bush and over brake, he became smeared all over. This was his safeguard. Wolves live for the night, and trust to their own keen scent to recognize each other, in the blackness of darkness which envelopes them, as they penetrate deeper and deeper into the innermost recesses of the koond.

It is a well-known fact that when a pack of wolves are out hunting, if one of their number gets into a fight, and becomes smeared with the blood of their prey, the rest of the pack mistake it for the object of their chase, and tear it to pieces instead.

We think only of the savage ferocity of the wolf when it is seeking its prey, but it has a warm and loving heart beneath its shaggy coat. The nobility of the dog is in it; and to each other they are as faithful, affectionate, and obedient, and even more intelligent.

The gray wolf stopped at last before a luxuriant korinda bush. The thick-leaved branches arched over until they touched the ground, forming a leafy tent so thick and dark and cool no rain could filter through, and the brightest sunshine could scarcely dart more than a flickering glimmer upon the snug nest it sheltered.

Such was the spot the wolves had chosen for their nursery. They had dug a hole and lined it with the softest moss they could find, and the wolf-mother had torn off the hair from her own coat to improve her babies' bed.

Five little heads popped up to welcome mother, as the gray wolf, with Carl in her mouth, pushed her way beneath the branches; and the grim, gaunt wolf-father, who had been guarding them in her absence. got up with a stretch as she dropped the child into the midst of the pricking ears and wagging tails. She had brought Carl to her wolflings as a cat brings a mouse to her kittens, to teach them how to kill and to devour; but the savage lesson was yet unlearned. They were more ready for play than for lessons, and found infinite delight in tearing his shirt to pieces, and freeing him from so strange an encumbrance.

They rolled over and over together as puppies love to do; and when Carl cried, not knowing what to make of such strange surroundings, the wolf-father in much perplexity sniffed all over him.

Could that smooth-skinned, hairless little creature be one of his cubs? How he pricked up his ears every time the small lips puckered, half in fear, and more than half in anger, because nobody came to fetch Carl! The deepening sobs ended at last in a roar that made the five strong wolflings howl in concert.

The shaggy mother stepped into her nest and cuddled her young ones lovingly in her rough paws. The sixth little head crept closer and closer until it also found a pillow on that hairy shoulder. Sleeping in the dark on the dewy moss, Carl dreamed of Sailor in a rougher coat, and waked to find his dream a reality. But his arms were round his hairy nurse, and the pouting lips were kissing her rough cheek, as if she really were his own dear old doggie.

Could he have seen the savage face, he might have been afraid.

Those who live in the land where wild beasts dwell, know that a loving caress will even induce a tiger to withdraw its teeth; but few, very few, have the courage and presence of mind to try it. It is just another proof that love, which is stronger than death, is also stronger than the savage instincts of wolves and tigers; reminding us of that millennial day when the wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and none shall hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain.

Rare as such instances are, they do really happen, and many a story is told under the banyan trees of Bengal of children who have been brought up thus in a wild wolf's nest.

From that hour the grim and savage creature looked on Carl Desborough as her own.

He waked up wide at last, hungry and thirsty. Old Gray Legs, the fierce wolf-father, cracked a marrow-bone with his formidable teeth as a boy might crack a nut, and gave it to him to suck. The wild honey trickled from the rocks above the korinda bush. Ripe mangoes dropped from the trees around, and lay ready to his baby hand in the drying grass, and other wild fruits ripened and fell around him as the summer days went on. It must have worried the wolf-mother that he cared so little for flesh, which her cubs begin to eat at five weeks. But nothing comes amiss to a wolf in the shape of food, so she let him help himself to what he liked best.

The wild birds sang overhead; the frogs croaked in the grass, and queer-looking lizards basked in the chinks of the rock; crawling snakes wound their slimy length about unheeded, as they hissed in anger or basked in some happy spot into which a straggling sunbeam happened to penetrate. Carl might shriek with terror when he heard the tigers grunting in the bed of the stream, as the search for water grew more difficult every day, or the "Ugh! ugh!" of a grizzly bear in search of the mangoes in which it so delights; but he was really safe, for the wolves never leave their young alone. If one parent takes a stroll, the other remains to watch over them, and at the sound of their cry the whole pack would rally to their defence.

Carl was so much weaker and so much more helpless than their other wolflings, that Old Gray Legs and his mate kept him close beside them when he ventured outside his mossy hole.

No human foot had ever penetrated this forest fastness, and if some echo of a hunter's cry did occasionally waken its solitudes, it was scarcely heeded.

It was as if poor little Carl had been transported to another world, beyond the reach of all who loved him so dearly. As the weeks went on he forgot his home, or remembered it only in dreams. Like a baby Robinson Crusoe,

"He was out of humanity's reach;

Must he finish his journey alone—

Never hear the sweet music of speech,

And start at the sound of his own!"

The young wolflings made him run on all fours; for if they saw him stand upright, one or other was sure to leap on his back and roll him over. Besides, it was often much easier to crawl than to walk in that trackless wild of fallen rocks and marshy swamps, where decaying tree-trunks barred the path, and unsuspected burrows perforated what might otherwise have been described as solid ground.

Like all wild beasts, the wolves retreated to their secret bower for a midday sleep, and took their stroll in the moonlight. So Carl was almost always in the dark, and his eyes grew so weak he began to blink like an owl in the sunshine. For sometimes he waked up when his wolfish companions were all fast asleep, and at such times he was apt to stray beyond the dense foliage of the korinda. Now and then the fierce blaze of the noonday sun shot a swift ray across the drying watercourse, where a fallen tree made a break in the thick masses of leaves that for the most part shut out sky and sun altogether. He would scramble over the rough ground, attracted by its brilliancy, and then, half-blinded by the unaccustomed light, stumble and fall. Many a sad hurt befell him, and many a time Old Gray Legs fetched him home; many a fight he had with chattering monkeys and sprightly-spotted fawns—fights which would have ended badly for Carl but for the vigilance of his foster-parents. But the scars and scratches, the bites and stings, taught him at last to find protection and safety by the gray wolf's side, until he became afraid to lose sight of her, and answered her slightest call as dutifully as the five strong cubs, who were now his sole playfellows.

He became the old wolf's constant care; for the perils which surrounded him increased when week after week wore away, and the ever-increasing heat dried up the last and deepest pool, which had remained to mark the course of the once dashing torrent. The blackening grasses rustled as the wolves rushed hither and thither, with their tongues hanging out of their mouths from thirst; and the young things cried for the water they could not find.

When the moon rose behind the rocky steeps which shut in the koond with its precipitous wall, the patriarch of the pack gave tongue, and called his hairy children to follow him out. The time had come for those five wolflings to obey the call, and Carl was as unwilling to be left behind as the gray wolf was to leave him. Out, out he went into the silvery moonlight, led by the two old wolves into the very midst of the pack, catching something of the excitement of the hunt as the wolves swept down the dried-up river-bed with an appalling howl, in pursuit of their flying prey. To keep up with them was impossible, and when he could neither run nor crawl, in his terror he scrambled upon his foster-mother's back and rode.

When that appalling howl rang through the midnight air, every sleeper in Noak-holly wakened in trembling fear; and yet a bit of white rag fluttering at the end of a tall bamboo would have made so good a "scare-wolf" that it would have kept the whole pack at a respectful distance.

After nights like these, Carl grew vigorous and strong, bounding into the air, and leaping like the young fawn they were pursuing, and running on all fours with astonishing swiftness.

Once he was almost left behind, as the whole pack scampered off suddenly at the unwelcome sound of the hunting-horn of a Rana, or small hill chieftain.

The child was left staring wistfully at the Hindu train; for, like the wolves, the Rana had chosen the midnight to come out with his hog-spear and beat the jungle for his share of the game with which the hills abounded. But the sight of the turbaned heads and the dusky faces, the bare black arms poising the long bamboo-handled spears, and the sound of their unearthly cries, aroused no thought of home in the heart of the baby hunter. They only terrified him. The boy was growing wild. With a leap and a yell he bounded into the air, for the Rana's dogs were upon him.

Out from the towering moonje grass rushed the returning wolves, hemming him round as they would the weakest of the pack, and fighting off the hounds.

Carl was down; but Gray Legs stood over him and brought him out of the fray unhurt, although the Rana's spear stuck in the ground within an inch of his naked chest.

"There is a boy in the midst of the pack," said the Rana's jogie or beater, who had thrown the spear—"a child of the fair people"—for so the Hindus amongst themselves usually call the Europeans.

CHAPTER V.

NOAK-HOLLY.

Alive in the jungle. These words, which had brought such comfort to little Kathleen in her childish simplicity, were torture to Mr. Desborough, as he pictured his boy dropped by the wolf in the midst of the pathless wilds, the dwelling-places of those ravenous beasts, and not of them alone. He thought of the birds of prey that lodged unheeded in those stately trees—the brooding vultures, the screaming kites. He seemed to see the poisonous hissing snakes, the stinging scorpions, and creeping things innumerable, that infest the trackless undergrowth of the hill forests.

"Tell me anything but that!" he exclaimed, shuddering. The search was renewed with an added desperation. By the water's edge, among the broad crinkly-edged lily leaves which starred the stream and formed fairy rafts for innumerable water-wagtails, he found a fragment of embroidered muslin, torn off by cruel teeth from Carly's tiny sleeve. He saw it was blood-stained. He saw no more, for the fierce sun shot its hottest rays upon his uncovered head. His hat fell as he stooped to secure it, and he sank unconscious on the slippery bed of the drying stream.

"Dropped with the heat," said the major, who thought all further search was vain, and he bade the servants convey their master home.

The house was now hermetically closed, every door and window shut up to exclude the heat. The well-moistened tatties cooled the hot air as it passed through them, and kept the darkened rooms just bearable.

It is the custom of most families in India to have two breakfasts: one quite early; the second, which is called tiffen, resembles the French déjeûner, and is ready a little before noon. The early breakfast had been forgotten by every one in Noak-holly that morning. The black servants were gliding noiselessly about; and when the major inquired for his little fairy Kathleen, they confidentially informed him that the little beebee would not eat.

"Bring her in to tiffen," said the major; and he strolled into the familiar dining-room, where he found his new acquaintance of the morning, Miss Bona St. Faine, seated in solitary state. At any other time, the odd expression of her face would have convulsed him with laughter. She was new to Indian ways, and was looking very blankly at an empty table to which she had been solemnly conducted by Mr. Desborough's butler, Bene Madho. She was feeling very hungry, understood she was summoned to breakfast, and saw nothing before her but flowers. Oliver, who had just emerged from the bathroom, appeared at another door.

"I wish," she said almost petulantly, "you would not leave me in such awkward fixes in a stranger's house. You might behave a little more like a gentleman, Oliver. In such circumstances as these no one likes to give trouble, but I am really getting ill for want of food."

"It is coming," said her brother, as the black servants, who had only been waiting for the major, made their appearance, handing round course after course of fish and curry and game.

Down flew a whole troop of impudent young sparrows. Some darted after the dishes in the servants' hands, and others set to work on the crumbs by Bona's plate, quite unabashed by the near neighbourhood of her knife and fork.

Little Kathleen was brought in by her ayah, a coolie following, anxious to obey to the uttermost the incoherent charges of their prostrate master—"Take care of my little Kathleen."

The stately Bene Madho brought her plate of stewed fowl and rice, the usual diet of children in India; but it stood untasted before her. The major patted her feverish cheek, afraid to allude to her lost brother, for fear of bringing on another passionate outburst of her childish sorrow. He sent the ayah away, thinking the child would only copy the lamentations and cries in which she indulged—a display of grief very distasteful to the English officer. His young companions sat silent and constrained, watching Kathleen.

"She will fret herself into a fever before night," said the major. "Weeping becomes dangerous with the thermometer at 110°. I must intrust her to you, my dear young lady. Try and comfort her."

But from all Bona's endeavours Kathleen shrank. She did not want the strangers; she wanted her own mamma; she longed only to creep into some quiet corner and cry unseen. This was just what the major was charging Bona to prevent. The shy child fixed her large pleading eyes on the old soldier's face, and the white lips moved, but there was no word that any of them could understand.

They had fetched her away from her ayah, feeling as if the nurse must be in some way to blame for the catastrophe of the night, and was no longer to be trusted.

"She ought never to have the care of these children again," said Bona energetically. "Stranger as I am, I will remain with the little girl, if Mrs. Desborough wishes me. I will, indeed, if they are going to send the woman away."

"What a Job's comforter you are!" muttered Oliver, as the spoon fell from Kathleen's fingers in dismay.

"It was not my ayah let in the wolf; it was me," Kathleen sobbed. "Let me go and tell mamma all about it."

"Tell me," suggested the major, drawing her between his knees.

"O my dear!" exclaimed Bona, horrified. "Surely you never did. How could you be so naughty?"

Oliver got up and stood by the major, that he might not lose a single word of the faltering confession.

"I never can be happy until Carly's found—never, never!" murmured Kathleen, putting both her little hands into the major's, and repeating earnestly, "You will tell mamma it was all my doing."

The gravity of the look which stole over the major's face as he listened choked Kathleen's voice with sobs, for she felt every one would blame her, and she was shy and sensitive.

"How could you meddle with the blind?" exclaimed Bona. "Only think, my dear, of the terrible consequences!"

"Yes, talk to her, Miss St. Faine," said the major. "She must never do such a thing again."

Bona laid her hand on Kathleen's shoulder, but she shook it off, and darting away into the darkest corner of the hall, hid herself behind her father's door, dislodging a whole family of toads, who had crept indoors to find a shelter from the heat. Kathleen's kitten hotly resented this intrusion, and sprang after them with tail erect and bristling hair. The toads receiving many sharp pats on their broad backs from her uplifted paw, were driven across the hall, backwards and forwards, keeping Bona dancing on one foot as she tried to follow Kathleen. But at last she fled in disgust, as the whole toad family were sent leaping into her dress by pussy's officious paw.

"Oliver! Oliver!" she entreated.

He came to her help with a laugh, which seemed so out of place in the mournful house he felt ashamed of himself the next minute. He knelt down beside Kathleen. "I like you, my little woman," he whispered. "You took the blame on your own shoulders, like a brick. Oh, what little shoulders they are! Of course, a boy would have done so. Don't fret about how the wolf got in too much. They are awful creatures. I am a sailor boy. Terrible things happen at sea. My father was captain of a merchant vessel. I have been to Calcutta before with him. He died at sea. The mate brought the ship into port. Bona is only a school-girl, fresh from England. She was coming out to uncle, so they sent me on with her. Never mind her, she is such a fuss-fuss!"

Awkward as Oliver's attempts at consolation were, Kathleen felt they were sincere. She looked into his honest brown eyes and repeated her question—the question every one shrank from answering—"What will the big wolf do with Carly?"

"Iffley," called Mr. Desborough from the other side of the chintz curtain which did duty for a door, "stop those children's tongues, or I shall go mad."

The major laid an imperative hand on Oliver's arm and marched him off into the veranda, where a mat in a shady corner invited him to take the siesta he so much needed after his night-journey. The ayah carried Kathleen away in her powerful arms.

The stifling, burning heat grew more and more intense. The heavy sleep of sorrow slowly stole over the desolated household, and the weary day wore on. The coolies, who had been abroad since the dawn, returned one by one to eat their rice and repeat the same tale—"No trace! no hope!" There was nothing more to be done. There is no land like India for sudden calamity. Those of us who pass many years among its rice-fields and banyan trees learn a resignation and a promptitude in action not common elsewhere. To do quickly all that ought to be done, before it is too late, is so imperative that no one was surprised when Mr. Desborough announced his determination to send Mrs. Desborough and the two children still left to them to the hills immediately.

"This very night, if it were possible!" he exclaimed, as he caught up Racy, only to grieve the more over the loss of poor little Carly. A terrible fear of another midnight alarm oppressed the whole household. The syces lighted fires close outside the compound, to scare away any wild beasts which might be prowling about in the groves and thickets. Every precaution was taken.

The sun was sinking. The brief ten minutes of summer twilight had come when every one in India hurries into the open air. The long white line of road winding between the shady rows of trees was alive with traffic. Bona and Oliver stood ready for departure, watching the novel scene.

Straggling groups of workers from the indigo factory loitered round the gates of Mr. Desborough's compound—hideous-looking creatures with waist-clothes, hands and faces all blue: a whole troop of Bluebeards, which Bona thought would haunt her very dreams. They meekly drew aside and salaamed to the ground, as a gilded carriage, drawn by a pair of white humped oxen, swept by. A long line of carts, creaking under their loads of indigo pulp, quickly followed. The scantily-clothed villagers who accompanied them were uttering most unearthly cries to encourage their weary beasts. A deafening sound of splashing of water and stamping of feet told of the near neighbourhood of a drove of buffaloes returning to their homes for the night.

Oliver looked for them in vain. They were making a pathway through the pool, and only the tips of their noses were to be seen as they sniffed the evening air, or snatched a mouthful of lily-leaves with snorts of rejoicing; while groups of merry children on the opposite bank were washing all the clothing they had—a broad white calico sash or waist-cloth. Their washing was a curious performance. They banged one end of the sash on a smooth stone, just under the water, until it fluttered before them white as snow, then they turned it and washed the other end.

A group of travellers, resting under a tree on the opposite side of the road, watched the lighting of the fires with evident curiosity, as they passed a friendly hookah, or pipe, from one to another. They smoked, and listened to the remarks of the indigo-workers, who were charging the children to hasten home before the darkness gathered.

All were talking, all were discussing the disaster of the morning—rejoicing that the wolf had eaten the bullet of the sahib, and their children might sleep in peace.

Major Iffley was bargaining with a party of coolie wallahs, who had come from the village, to carry Bona's dandy to the judge's bungalow.

Mrs. Desborough put back the curtain of her tent, and waved a farewell to the brother and sister on the eve of their departure, and entreated the major to remain with them that night at least.

She was pale and calm, but the havoc which that day had made in her appearance had reduced her to a shadow of her former self.

"Not me only, but my loaded gun," he answered, as he hastened to assure her every precaution they could devise was already taken.

Bona and Oliver drew a few steps nearer, looking the sympathy they knew not how to express in words. But the curtain fell suddenly, and they saw no more of the mournful mother behind it. Even the major, old family friend as he was, would not, could not intrude on the sacredness of a grief like hers.

He shook hands with his new young friends, hoped for a happier meeting before long, and returned to the veranda of Mr. Desborough's bungalow. He loaded his gun with scrupulous care, and beguiled the weary night-watch by smoking an unlimited number of pipes, and growling at the numerous inmates of sun-cracked walls and retired corners, not to mention the disturbances of the punkah coolies, who cried out in terror every time a big Langour monkey stole across the lawn or a wild-cat leaped from the trees, one and all declaring that another wolf had ran away with the little beebee.

To have had a real skirmish with a wolf, a panther, or even a tiger, would have been less distasteful to the English officer than soothing the midnight fancies of the dismayed household, or escaping from the unwelcome attentions of Kathleen's pet lizard, which had left its favourite retreat behind the pictures in the dining-room for a midnight stroll in the veranda.

CHAPTER VI.

AWAY TO THE HILLS.

"Can you ever love me again, mamma?" asked Kathleen when Mrs. Desborough left the tent on the lawn for the first time, whilst the ayah took her place by baby Horace, who was slowly but surely recovering.

For three whole days, whilst Kathleen was left to herself, she had never ceased crying. The servants found her continually by the window of the bathroom through which the wolf had entered, leaning her burning head against one of the huge red pitchers which contained the supply of water for the day's use. Let no one say cold water, for there was nothing cold to be found anywhere. The bath towels were as hot to the touch as if they had been hanging in front of a blazing fire. The air was thick with tawny dust. The oppression was frightful. The excessive dryness made every breath feel like the blast of a furnace. Insect wings began to drop off all over the rooms, and were wafted into drifts by the waving fans from the ceiling, and their wretched little owners, who had lost them, were wriggling about the floor. The thousands of poor white ants had already done so much mischief that no one had any pity left for their forlorn condition. The bhisti, the coolie who does housemaid's work, came and swept them away. Wasps, crickets, and enormous horned spiders abounded, but were worse in the night than the day. Not one of the numerous families of birds which made their homes in the veranda would sing a note.

Sailor lay at his young mistress's feet, and followed her everywhere with a pertinacity that said very plainly, "She is all that is left to me."

The ayah had done her utmost to divert the child. Her dolls and playthings strewed the veranda.

Bene Madho brought her cakes and sweetmeats when he returned from the bazaar, which he visited daily. Four or five in the morning is the hour for marketing in India, and therefore the busiest time in all the day. He virtually kept his mistress's purse, and bought everything she wanted. His purchases that morning were numerous, for the preparations for the removal to the hills were hurried on by Mr. Desborough. He wanted to take Kathleen away, for in her great sorrow she would not eat or speak, and was always slipping off unseen, even from him. Children in India who are left to the black servants so often grow troublesome.

"See that she eats; mind and send her to sleep," he charged the ayah. But the ayah told him in her despair Kathleen would do neither.

The gentle touch of her mother's hand, and the fond, sad kiss on her parching lips, at last lifted the lead-like load which to Kathleen seemed breaking her heart, and she whispered tearfully, "Can you ever love me again, mamma?"

"Love you, my darling!" repeated Mrs. Desborough, in surprise at such a question. "Mamma must love her little daughter more than ever now, for she may soon have no one else to love."

"No, no, mamma, you do not know. I let the wolf in," lamented Kathleen under her breath.

"The wolf!" exclaimed Mrs. Desborough. "My child, the wolf that killed dear little Carly!"

"It did not kill him, mamma!" cried Kathleen vehemently. "The stranger boy said so. O mamma, could not God, who took care of Daniel in the lions' den, take care of our Carly in the wolf's mouth?"

The bhisti, who was coming in with his water-skin to fill up the great red pitchers against which Kathleen was leaning, ran to his mistress as she sank on the edge of the bath, overcome with the thoughts which Kathleen's wild words had suggested. It was the first hint which had reached her that there was any uncertainty about her poor little child's fate.

She could not in her motherly love take away from Kathleen the hope that Carly was still alive, the poor little sister's distress of mind was so great. But she saw Mr. Desborough's strong motive for hurrying them off to the hills. If the wolf which had seized one child was still prowling about the place, it might seize another in some unguarded moment.

"Let us take them away to-night," she said to him; and the effort to get ready, which had appeared so overwhelming when he proposed it, seemed now as nothing compared to the fear of the wolf's return. Beds were packed up. But beds in India are a simple affair. A thick quilted cotton resais, as they call it, serves for sheets, blanket, and mattress all in one. A supply of pillows is all that is necessary; bolsters are unused in India. They must also take calico for punkahs, and plenty of palm-leaf matting, which is so cheap it can be used for anything. Bene Madho had bought abundance of all these things, which the servants were packing in huge bundles, to be carried on poles between men's shoulders.

How they all worked throughout the day, despite the heat, and Mr. Desborough harder than anybody! An adventurous kite carried off a fork from the dinner-table, and a monkey sprang down from the roof of the veranda and snapped up Kathleen's doll, which it carried to the tallest tamarind tree in the garden. There it sat on one of the topmost branches, cuddling the doll in its olive-green paws, as if it were a great treasure. Kathleen did not mind it much. The gardener assured her he should find it, as he had found the fork, dropped among the flowers; and then it seemed so easy to Kathleen to think Carly might be found in the same sort of way. She never lost the hope which Oliver's words had put into her heart.

But to hear her say so was an added grief to Mr. Desborough.

In the evening, when they were dressed for the journey, papa took her on his knee and told her not to talk about the wolves to mamma any more. Then he bade her remember no one must believe all the servants were saying, for they were idolaters. They thought that monkeys were better than men, and that some of them were sacred, and they really worshipped them. They did not know any better. No one could be sure whether the tales they told about the wolves were true or not, so he wished her not to repeat them; it would frighten Horace.

Yes, Horace was better—going with them.

"There he is," said papa, pointing to the ayah, who was carrying him up and down the veranda, before the windows of the drawing-room where they were talking. Away flew Kathleen, holding out her arms to take him, and covering him with kisses.

"She will soon be herself again, with change of scene, and Horace for a playfellow," Mr. Desborough continued, turning to his wife. "Thank God, my dear, if the one child has been taken from us, the other is left."

By the close of that busy day everything was ready for departure. The long procession passed through the gates of the compound just as the glorious sun was sinking in its bed of ebony and gold; for deep black bars of cloud were crossing the flood of light which covered the western sky.

Mr. Desborough's horse was prancing in its impatience, while the coolies harnessed themselves to the curtained dandies. There was one for Mrs. Desborough, with Horace on her lap, and another for the ayah and Kathleen, so that the children could sleep away the greater part of the journey. Until the heaving of burdens and the buckling of straps were concluded, the ayah amused Kathleen by pointing to the setting sun, and gravely assuring her there were twelve suns, brothers, who shone by turns. This one was going away, and his elder brother, who was so strong he could kill a man, would come in his place. The ayah was very glad they would all be safe on the hills before the strongest of all the twelve took his turn. The younger brothers were much weaker; the youngest of all was so weak he could hardly melt the snow that fell on the mountains.

Kathleen thought that this must be one of the tales papa referred to.

The syce, who ran by the horse's head with a fly-flapper in his hand, was shouting to it to be quiet until the sahib was ready to mount. "O son of a pig!" he was crying, "O faithless, perverse one! have ye never learned to be still?"

Away they all went at last, the bearers keeping time with a long, monotonous, grunting sort of cry, to which the horses were too well accustomed to be frightened. They soon left the highroad, going at the rate of four miles an hour, by narrow paths, too narrow for any cart or carriage. Mounting wave after wave of hill, higher and higher, sometimes winding by the edge of a precipice, or climbing the steep side of a giant cliff, then almost tumbling down some mountain valley, on, on they went, with a slow and even swing, whilst the coolies laughed and chatted as if they were almost enjoying the heavy burdens which English arms could never have lifted. Up and up once more, as the moon shone forth with its silver radiance, bathing the stately forest trees with its soft, clear light, and making the dark shadows which rested on the deep ravines all the blacker by contrast. They were passing the two-storied stone-built castle of a mountain chief, perched like a gigantic bird's nest on the verge of a tree-crowned height. A bright and gurgling mountain stream was dashing and foaming by its side as it leaped from height to height. The travellers were sprinkled with its flashing spray as they crossed the edge of the torrent, little dreaming that news of Carl would await them there on their return. But now the scream of the night-owls, and the flap of the vultures' wings, and the ever-increasing cries of the jackals, echoed all around.

"But the darkest hour of all the night,

Is that which brings us day."

Oh, if Mr. and Mrs. Desborough could have understood the silent lesson that midnight journey might have taught them, it would have soothed their heartache. They could see no ending to their night of sorrow; they scarcely thought the soothing touch of time would ever dull the sharpness of their grief. But every night does end.

The first pale gleam of the coming day showed Kathleen the sloping roof of a white-walled bungalow, peeping amid a forest of pine trees high up overhead. Should they ever reach it? The flowers which covered those steep hillsides began to open their petals and drink in the drop of dew that was falling for each and all.

Racy woke up with laughing eyes and outstretched hands, clamouring for the bright, many-coloured dahlias which grew by thousands in their path.

The good-natured coolies stopped to gather them by handfuls, to Racy's infinite delight. The pleasure of pulling them to pieces and pelting the black shoulders of their bearers with them, found vent in little squeals of merriment that brought the first faint ghost of a smile to his mother's lips.

With the daybreak came many changes. Flocks of sheep and goats met them in the narrow path, making the crossing doubly dangerous. Some asses laden with grain were on their way to the Rana's castle, and their drivers drew aside to make their salaam to the English travellers, and exchange greetings with the coolie wallahs, and carry the news to the Rana's castle.

A most obstreperous cawing from hundreds of cunning-looking crows arose from the forest, whilst a regular chorus of wild laughter echoed through the darkest ravines. It was the morning song of the black-faced thrushes that congregate in unimaginable multitudes in these hidden solitudes. But sweeter than all was the lengthened flute-like note of the black-headed oriole.

Suddenly the path changed. They were going downhill beneath magnificent trees, yews and oaks rising from an undergrowth of creepers and roses, checkered with multitudinous flowers that were unknown to Kathleen and her mother. On they went, swinging to the bottom of the valley, through whole fields covered with pale-blue foxglove, over which myriads of bees were flitting.

Horace began to mimic the cry of the black partridges which abounded. "Tie-tara! tie-tara!" rang on every side, as the footsteps of the coolies disturbed them in their lowly nests. One more toilsome hill, and then the coolies paused on a small plateau on the verge of the dark pine wood. Before them stood the pleasant bungalow, with its hospitable doors wide open to receive the travellers. Its white-washed rooms looked airy and clean. A few native servants who belonged to the place hurried out to welcome them; and Kathleen, who was leaning eagerly forward, could see the graceful figure of a Hindu woman making cakes, which she flattened between her hands with astonishing celerity, and flung into a brass pan which stood near her over a quaint-looking brazier. The dandies were set down, and Mr. Desborough came to lift his wife out.

"Too much cover for snakes," he said, as he cast a sharp eye at the thick, tall grass spreading from the steps of the veranda to the very edge of the precipice. The half-made garden was more indebted to nature than art; but that only heightened the peculiar charm that overspread the place. Here and there the great bauhinia creeper wreathed itself into delightful bowers above the moss-covered stem of a fallen pine. Its strong tendrils, like furzy brown horns, caught the overarching boughs of the tallest trees and bound them in leafy fetters. Proud peacocks strutted about at will. A stately old stork seemed untiring in its endeavours to find the snake Mr. Desborough dreaded to discover. But, above all, the fragrant breezes from the vast pine forest seemed an earnest of returning health.

CHAPTER VII.

THE RANA'S SONS.

The first thing which attracted Kathleen's attention, when her father lifted her out of her swinging carriage, was the sight of a Thibetan woman milking the cows. She was dressed in dirty rags, with a torn blanket thrown over her head. But round her neck she wore three strings of beads, so quaint and curious Kathleen could do nothing but look at them. The beads were as big as hazel-nuts. One row was of coral and turkois; in another the beads were of a greenish hue, spotted all over like thrushes' eggs; the third was coral, with silver tags between. So the ayah took her to beg a cup of milk, whilst the breakfast was preparing. They made her a cup with a leaf and a thorn; and as the queer-looking milkmaid twisted it into proper shape round her slender fingers, she noticed the child's red eyes and colourless cheeks and heard the story of the lost brother. "O children of pigs!" she exclaimed. "To think a wolf in May would eat him up! No, no. There has been many a child brought up by the wolves, as I've heard tell. Perhaps it was its grandfather; who knows? It would not hurt it if it were."

She caught up Kathleen in her arms, and carried her to the edge of the cliff, pointing downwards to the tops of the mighty trees growing in the dark ravines between the hills they had been crossing—hills below hills, stretching away beneath their feet, so grand and vast and wild. The gray mud walls of the little Hindu village looked like an ant-hill in their midst. Kathleen felt dimly how the timid, gentle, imaginative Hindu men and women, who have lived all their lives within reach of the formidable beasts that range at will through those forest-glades, grow so afraid that their fear almost changes to reverence. They say they are all God's creatures, mightier and stronger than themselves. They dare not hurt them for the world; and they think when they die they shall be changed into them. They mix their fancies with all they see and hear, as her father had told her; but yet she could not help listening when the weird-looking milkmaid entreated her not to cry any more, but to see the glorious places where the wild wolves slept in the sunlight, and to think her little brother was there among them. Oh no; she did not believe he would want to come back. He would grow into a wolf, and be happy.