CHAPTER XIV

.*

_*THE HOMEWARD ROAD.*_

The old hunter's forethought was apparent now; for the child at his back began to howl most dismally as poor little Carl became aware that he was being carried away from his forest home. Oliver's sweetmeats were exhausted, and words, entreaties, and caresses were lavished on him in vain.

Through his wonderful power of observation, and the experiences of his adventurous life, old Tara knew as accurately as any scientific professor how surely sound descends. Ah, what if the wolves should awaken!

He knew the whole pack were sleeping in the dark shadows of the gorge where he had found the child, and he knew also that nothing makes a wild beast so angry as being wakened from its mid-day sleep. Carly's wild howl grew louder and louder--it might bring death upon them all--and nothing would still it.

But for the sudden breeze which had tempered the air, Oliver would have dropped with the noonday heat. As it was, he found it almost impossible to keep up with his companions. His thirst was becoming unbearable, when Tara espied in the distance one of the water-sheds which are built all over the sides of the hills where there is water. The little party made their way towards it, grateful for the refreshing shade its roof afforded. In the shed there was a range of stone troughs, filled from the running stream by which it was built; and round these troughs were a row of pipes, some made of reeds and some from hollow trees. It was a curious sight to see them spouting out water with a gentle, trickling fall. A native hill-man had brought up his oxen to drink, and whilst they slaked their thirst, he was smoking his pipe in the cool, damp shelter. Two women were filling their pitchers, and after the fashion of hill-mothers, they had laid their babies to sleep under the water-spouts. The Thibetan caught sight of the little black faces sleeping so peacefully, and ran to place their howling burden beside them. She laid little Carl down, with his head within a few inches of a spouting reed. The effect was instantaneous. The eyes and mouth closed slowly, and the child fell into a profound, sweet sleep, which she knew would last as long as they left him under the spout.

Tara Ghur was talking to the herdsman, who lent him his pipe. Oliver begged a draught of water from one of the women's pitchers, and washed his face and hands at one of the many rills that were flowing so prettily around him. He was thinking that Bona would consider herself a queen in the plainest of the necklaces worn by the ragged and dirty creature before him. He was wondering whether it would be safe to leave her with the sleeping child whilst he went on with the shikaree to the Rana's castle.

But no; he decided Mr. and Mrs. Desborough would never forgive him if he lost sight of their scarcely recovered treasure. No; he must wait until Carl was so soundly asleep that they could take him up and carry him away without waking him.

"Rest, sahib," urged the hunter, pointing to the trickling reeds.

Hungry as he was, Oliver laid himself down, intending to watch, not to sleep. But the heat and the drowsy influences of the gentle shower-bath overcame the boy, and he was soon as fast asleep as the child. After his night's adventures in the forest, the sensation was most delightful. Care and fear seemed to vanish, and his dreams transported him to the beauties of fairy-land. The horned heads of the oxen came alarmingly near, but they did not disturb the blissful tranquillity in which he lay, as if he were spell-bound.

Tara's hand upon his shoulder roused him at last. He heard the faint, low musical tinkle of a distant bell from the idol-temple, where the Rana worshipped his monkey-headed divinity; where he took his young sons to be sprinkled with consecrated water, and have their limbs touched with all imaginable substances, until Rattam was thoroughly cross. He was crosser than usual this morning, being bored out with the tedious childish ceremonies which he had had to sit through in stately silence.

It was delightful to receive a message from a native woman, as he came out of the temple, to tell him the hunter had returned, and was waiting with the young sahib at the water-shed.

When the shikaree touched Oliver on the shoulder, the milk-white ass, the gold-fringed umbrella, and the crowd of dusky attendants were advancing with Rattam across the intervening plateau.

"What does my brother in so mean a place," he asked, "when tiffin waits him in our castle-hall?"

Oliver stretched himself and rubbed his eyes, not at once remembering all that had happened. Then recollection came back, and he sprang to his feet, pointing to the sleeping child, and gave Rattam's hand a hearty Yorkshire grip.

The girlish young Oriental smiled, although he felt as if his fingers would all be out of joint: and pointing to a led ass behind him, signed to Oliver to mount.

The Thibetan had hid herself in the shed. But Rattam would not come near poor Carl. "He will bite," he said warningly, and his attendants shared in his belief. Not one of them dared touch Carl.

"Give him to me," shouted Oliver; for it was easy to see the Thibetan was growing fearful by contagion.

Oliver tumbled into the saddle. The hunter gently lifted up the child and laid it across his knees. A running syce led the ass, and another carried an umbrella over it, shading Oliver and his novel burden from the dazzling sun. Rattam rode beside him.

Tara Ghur came up, bending to the very ground before them. He was anxious to be the first to carry the good news to the search-party below the koond. He was thinking of his well-earned reward, and he did not want another messenger to share it. So they bade him go.

Rattam called to his attendants to halt under the leafy arches of a banyan tree, that they might watch Tara leaping down into the koond, springing from bough to bough, as if food and sleep were luxuries, to be enjoyed in leisure hours alone. Then Oliver blamed his sleepy head that he had not spoken again about the wolf.

"O Rattam," he urged, "you have one empty den in the corner of your lovely gardens; will you have it there? Think of the love that could transform a wolf! You should have seen its face as I did, when we first looked down into the pit. It made me feel there is nothing in the world so beautiful as love--nothing so strong. And when we had got the child away, I could not bear to let Tara hurt the wolf. The same God who made us made it. God is love. Does not he care for the whole world around, for everything he has made? How will he look on the cruelty of leaving the noble brute to perish in the pit?--and I've done that."

"Forget it," said Rattam; "remember only you have rescued the child."

Oliver hugged the sleeping bundle of life in his arms. "Oh, don't mistake me!" he said passionately. "But now we have got him away, it is such cruelty to leave the wolf tied as I have tied it. Surely you must see it is. And I have let the hunter go."

Perhaps Rattam did not see just what Oliver desired he should; but the young idolater was struck by his companion's earnestness. With all a Hindu's reluctance to take the life of the animals around him, he had no care for the cruelty of leaving the wolf to perish; yet, like a flash in the darkness, a sense of the difference between him and the English boy was stirring in his heart.

"It is too much like striking a fallen foe," urged Oliver, as they resumed their journey.

"Nay," returned Rattam; "I accept the gift: the wolf is mine. There is my father."

The Rana in his everyday dress of ordinary white cotton could only be distinguished from the headman of his village by the silver ring on his finger and the fineness of the shawl about his waist. He was driving back from the village when he encountered his son.

Meanwhile the old shikaree had raised the signal of success agreed upon. He had sent up a tall column of smoke whilst Oliver slept, by setting fire to a patch of grass. The nearest scout had seen and repeated it. The tiny flags on the long bamboos which his companions carried had waved the good news from the jagged cliffs across the temple ruins, from point to point along the broken ground, until it reached the father's ears.

The boys glanced round, and saw the wearied jogies swarming up the steep ascent above the koond, towards the slip of table-land on the verge of the forest behind the Rana's castle.

Foremost of all came Mr. Desborough up the precipitous path, until the footing for the well-trained mule he rode became too precarious. Then he sprang to the ground, flung the bridle to his syce, and hurried along on foot. The two friends following copied his example.

Rattam and Oliver turned back to meet them; then they perceived the old shikaree running before them as their guide. His tattered garments were so exactly the colour of the waving grass and scattered bushes through which he was leading them, that he looked more like some huge grasshopper than a living man.

They saw him pointing to the castle wall and gesticulating frantically in all the pride of his hardly-earned success, counting on the moment when he should lay the rescued little one in its father's arms. Then far down behind the lingerers of the scattered party they heard the echo of the dandy-wallahs' song. Despite the stubborn temper of the thing he was riding, Oliver did manage to press forward, and lifting up the sleepy child, he held it conspicuously before him. Of course he waked up Carl, and the howling wail again began.

Was ever any sound so grateful to Mr. Desborough's straining ears?

"There, there; listen!" he exclaimed, as he cleared the ground between them and came up panting.

"Here is the child, Mr. Desborough!" cried Oliver. "Now tell us, is he yours?"

"Turned nurse, my boy?" laughed the major.

Oliver answered with a shrug and a grimace, growing ridiculous, as he felt their task was accomplished.

Mr. Desborough sat down with the child on a lichen-covered stone. Where were the clear blue eyes? Gummed up.--Where was the soft fair hair? A shock of dirt.

The child snapped savagely at the hand that was fondling him, and renewed his wail.

"Take care," said Rattam. "I warned you it would be dangerous," backing his ass as he spoke.

"Quiet!" The single word fell from the major's lips in the stern tones of military command. The howl ceased, and the child lay passive in Mr. Desborough's arms. They soon found out how well it had learned the all-important lesson of obedience in the wild wolf's nest.

"A good scrub would be an improvement, I am thinking," remarked the deputy, with more drollery in the corner of his eye than Oliver had imagined him to possess.

The whole party were gathering now. They drew together under the banyan tree. In its grateful shadow there was room for all; for its arching branches had struck root as they touched the ground, forming a succession of leafy cloisters, until a grove had grown from a single tree. The overwhelming thankfulness in Mr. Desborough's heart lay far too deep for words as he looked the child well over, and felt it was his own--his Carl.

There were laughter and rejoicing all around him; but his brow was grave with the depth of his gratitude when the dandy-wallahs came up. As Kathleen peeped from her swinging carriage, she saw but one face, and that was her father's.

What did it mean?

He looked up and smiled at her. His eye was off the child just for one moment. Carl sprang into the air with a bound, leaping off like a frog to the tufted grass. Everybody ran--even Rattam. But Kathleen and her bearers faced him. They set the dandy on the ground, and ran round and round, scaring the queer little creature back, but not daring to touch him. Kathleen, peeping through the curtains of her dandy, saw it all. The great love that was throbbing in her childish heart shut out every thought of fear. The strange wild thing gave another leap. She tumbled out of the dandy, and as it touched the grass, with hands outspread, she caught it in her arms. The thing seemed nothing better than a human frog, with half-blind eyes and champing teeth. Save where the leaves clung to it, as if they had been glued, the little figure was completely naked and covered with slimy dirt. What did it matter? she loved him the more.

"You will have hard work to get the child home in safety yet," said Major Iffley; "you will have to secure it somehow. Borrow a cummer-band and swathe it round and round like a mummy."

"No bad thought," added the deputy; "something must be done."

Mr. Desborough was kneeling by his children. Before the major had finished speaking, an elderly bearer in Rattam's train, who looked as if he had huddled himself into a clean sheet to attend his young chieftain at the temple service, threw off this additional covering at a sign from his master and laid it at the sahib's feet.

"Put it round us both, papa," said Kathleen, "and then Carl won't mind it." Mr. Desborough thought the sunbeam she had been trying to entrap had made its home in the happy eyes uplifted so pleadingly to his. "He will be good with me, papa; he always was," she added.

The deputy was searching in his niece's dandy. Yes; Bona had understood all his hasty directions. At the back of the cushions there was the store of cakes, sufficiently English-looking to delight a child. "Here, Oliver," he said; "feed it."

"It." The word jarred on Kathleen's ears. "It is not it," she persisted indignantly; "it is my pretty Carl."

Mr. Desborough took the cake from Oliver's hand and fed Carl himself.

The cake was devoured; and whilst he filled the hungry mouth, the major passed the long length of calico quickly round Carl's neck, enveloping arms and feet, until the wild little harlequin was reduced to a great white ball, at least in appearance. How fast the cakes were vanishing!

"O Bona!" muttered Oliver, too proud to take the share he was longing for, "she might have sent us more."

No one but Rattam heard the low-voiced grumble.

"Sahib," he said, "my father awaits you," waving his hand in the direction of the castle wall.

But home was the word. "Yes, home," repeated Mr. Desborough--"home to his mother."

"Try a tub first," suggested the major.

Rattam was speaking to his shikaree.

"You have done my bidding, and you have done it well," he said like a prince. "Now bring me home the wolf you have caught. Bring it home alive to the vacant den in the castle gardens."

Tara Ghur salaamed before his chieftain till the dust rose up in a cloud between them. Oliver grasped the hand of his dusky friend once more. How was it he was always feeling Rattam more of a man than himself, or far too much of a girl?

Now that poor little Carl was made safe, so that he could not hurt any one, Rattam alighted, and drew nearer to the group on the grass.

"Talk to Carly again, Kathleen," Mr. Desborough was saying; "I believe he knows you. But you must not kiss him until I tell you it is safe," he added quickly, as she threw her arms around her long-lost brother.

Kathleen paused, and looked up in her father's face, bewildered for a moment.

"Then I will not do it, papa. I'll never forget again to mind what you say."

The hand which had snatched her back patted her fondly on the cheek, and the bitter pain which Kathleen had felt so long vanished altogether as her father answered,--

"Yes: I can trust you now, and I am going to trust you to take Carl home, my darling."

He put them both into the dandy, and drew the curtains closely round, so that nothing could be seen by the children. Bona's great bag of cakes was on Kathleen's lap, and her father showed her how to give Carl a bite without letting her fingers go near enough to his teeth to be in danger of an angry snap.

Mr. Desborough had left himself a peep-hole, so that his eye was never off his children for a moment as he walked by the side of the dandy. Had ever father such a journey before?

"Now, Kathy," he said cheerily, "you can do what no one else can do: you can make Carly listen. See how his eyes follow yours! Try and waken up his old love; you were with him to the last. Think of all that he was fond of in his nursery days; no one knows but you."

"Sahib! sahib!" entreated the coolies round, "no trust it with the little beebee--no trust it; grow angry, tear and bite."

Even the major and the deputy looked on doubtfully. They had known Kathleen only as a little wilful, heedless thing; but now they saw the better, higher nature in the child, expanding through the sorrow and the joy she had felt so deeply,--just as young plants grow and blossom when sunshine follows rain.

"I should think myself a happy man, Desborough, if I had such another fairy to call me father," observed the major, as they listened to Kathleen's cooing voice as she chattered on.

"O Carly, don't you know your own, own sissy? Now eat this, you dear, and Kath will give you plenty more, all so nice. There, there!"

"That sahib would blow the conch shell for a daughter," remarked Rattam thoughtfully. "I remember how our people blew it loudly for joy when Aglar was born; but when my little sister Deodee came, they all began to sigh and lament. I really think it would be well for us if that were changed."

"Then change it all you can," retorted Oliver. "Some day you and I will be men. But you need not wait for that; you are a brother now."

Rattam went home with a shadow on his brow, and a hunger in his heart for better things. We know of the promise that such hunger shall be satisfied at last; but Rattam knew only the favourite Hindu saying, "As it has always been, so it always will be," which fell like a wet blanket on his new-born wish to try. Yet that one day had not been lived in vain.

*