Chapter 5 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 déje?ner, 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.