Part 8

Avoiding the remnants of the bird-lime leaves, which were strewn about in all directions, he led his young companion to the other edge of the pit. Something had been caught. The sombre gloom around, the perpetual twilight which reigned all day in those deep recesses, prevented him from telling what it was. It seemed like blanket, not hair, that was covering a dark heap in the corner, besmeared with many a leaf. There was more than one denizen of the pit. How he smiled as he was bending over it! Oliver was watching a foolish hare, which came with a light bound across the treacherous pathway. As its feet touched a well-smeared pranes leaf, they were set fast, and not all its frantic endeavours could free itself. It rolled over and over, lifting the leaf high into the air, as far as its paws could reach. It bit it frantically; lips and paw were glued together. It struggled harder still to regain its liberty, until it became a rolling ball of dirt and leaves, every movement bringing it nearer and nearer to the sloping edge of the pit, into which it must have fallen if Oliver had not caught it in his arms and set it free.

The hunter recalled his attention. A faint sound was audible, like the feeble fret of a weary child. Oliver's cap went high into the air. Tara reminded him of the necessity for silence by laying his finger on his lips. Then he took the hunting-knife from his belt and felt its edge.

Oliver's eyes were growing more accustomed to the all-pervading gloom, and he began to see more clearly. He leaned over the edge of the pit. There was the wolf crouching in one corner, and a shapeless bundle in the other. Many a treacherous leaf was sticking fast about the shaggy coat, and one hind leg was evidently broken by its fall. Was that a bundle of leaves it was cuddling between its fore paws, and washing so lovingly despite its pain?

"Child found--found!" whispered the old man triumphantly, as he returned his knife to his belt and began to descend.

Swift as lightning the young sailor-boy slid down before him. He guessed the hunter's purpose. He saw the gleam of the sharpened blade, and seized the old man's arm.

"No, no; don't kill the wolf!" he entreated.

"Maro! maro!" shrieked a voice behind them, and a woman's face peeped out of the dirty blanket. The jewels round her neck shone like stars in the darkness. "Maro!" she reiterated.

"Maro." Oliver knew that word--"Kill it." The old shikaree was muttering the same. But Oliver only grasped his arm the tighter. "Should we be harder-hearted than a wolf?" he urged. "What are we, if we reward the generosity that spared the victim in her very teeth, with the knife?"

Tara Ghur looked at him in astonishment. "But the mighty lords that are coming will make it eat their bullets," he answered under his breath.

Oliver knew he was arguing with a man who bent the knee to hideous idols without number. Yet he was a man, and deep down in his heart the law of God was written, "Do as you would be done by"--a law that is never quite obliterated in any human breast, however persistently disobeyed. Although of another race, Tara had learned something of the Hindu tenderness for animal life, and he listened when Oliver still went on: "You have caught the wolf so cleverly, Tara. If there is not another hunter in all the hills that could do it, I am sure that you can get the child away without killing the wolf, if you will only try. I want it for Rattam," he added. The last argument was all-prevailing. The knife went back into the old man's belt. They looked around. Their first endeavour was to reassure the unfortunate woman.

She was crossing to Nataban, and had lost her way in the jungle, where she had been wandering about all night. Her feet slipped on the bird-lime, and she fell, as the wolf had fallen, into the hunter's trap, where she was forced to remain huddled up in her blanket, expecting every moment the brute would turn and devour her. But deliverance had come with the morning. Her gratitude knew no bounds. Oliver scrambled out of the pit, and gave her a hand from above, while Tara lifted her up on his shoulder; and so between them they dragged her back to the daylight, if daylight it might be called.

The dirty blanket was dropped in the pit, and the Thibetan woman stood before them in her necklaces and rags. Oliver had not forgotten little Kathleen and the mountain milkmaid. Could those three strings of beads belong to any one else? But he dared not stay to question. He left her seated and trembling on the root of a tree, and leaped down into the pit again. The wolf was blinded by the birdlime, but she had heard their voices. Like all wolves when caught in a pit, she was completely cowed. Instead of offering the least resistance, she stretched herself at the bottom of the pit, as if she were dead, with her fore paws over her nursling, hiding him all she could.

The hunter, who knew what wolves will do under such circumstances, guessed it was only pretence. She could not get out of the pit herself; and he had known wolves artful enough to let him drag them out, without showing the slightest sign of life, and when he had left them lying on the ground, believing they were dead, they would suddenly start up and run away.

Tara Ghur explained this to Oliver as well as he could, assuring him in this state she would submit to be handled. It was clear she had not attempted to touch the woman. Under any other circumstances she would have torn her to pieces.

The boy's heart gave a great leap of joy. He saw a baby's foot twitching between the outstretched paws. Old Tara saw it too. He took from the bosom of his loose brown vest, which is the Hindu's pocket, a coil of rope, and was tying a slip noose at one end, when Oliver guessed his purpose. In another moment the noose would have been round the gray wolf's throat. Oliver knew the old man was only doing his duty to those who had employed him to find the child and destroy the wolf, but he could not bear to see him kill the noble-hearted creature with the child in her paws--the child she had spared and cherished and guarded from unimaginable perils all those months! "We must, we ought to spare her in our turn," he cried, pushing back the noose as far as her jaw. "We will muzzle her; that's enough."

But the collar to fix the muzzle was wanting. Oliver was wearing knickerbockers and a loose brown blouse, belted round his waist. He tore off his belt and slipped the buckle down: there was the collar they wanted. Whilst Tara still held the ends of the rope, securing the wolf's mouth, Oliver slipped his belt under her chin, and buckled it firmly at the back of her neck. Then they drew the two ends of the rope over her forehead and knotted them to the belt, and the wolf was securely muzzled. With the end of the rope which he still held Tara pulled her backwards, and Oliver snatched up the child, all sticky with the bird-lime, and covered with the dust and dirt in which it had been rolled; but its limbs were warm and strong, for it resisted his attempts to hold it. He was by far the stronger of the two, but the struggle might rouse the wolf to animation. Oliver slipped two fingers into his pocket, which he was in the habit of filling from the Rana's jars, and pushed a bit of the beautiful sweetmeats with which they were filled into the tiny mouth. The little creature, so long a stranger to the taste of sugar, sucked its lips with pleasure. It must have been hungry. He fed it with all he had, until Tara came and took it from him to carry it out of the pit. Oliver watched him scramble to the top with the child in his arms, but he did not follow when he saw them safely on the bank. There was something else he wanted to do. He was not going to leave the wolf down there, with a broken leg, to perish slowly from hunger and thirst: that would be cruelty indeed. He stood a while considering the broken limb.

"Sahib! sahib!" called the hunter. Oliver's plan was made; so he grasped the dusky hand which was stretched out to him, and clambered up.

The ragged woman had taken the child in her arms, and was trying to rub off some of the dirt which covered it with the corner of her chuddar, the loose garment the Hindu women wear. Her own had once been pink, but had now lost all trace of its original colour.

What child had they found? Was it black or white? Who could answer the question in its state of dirt in that dim twilight? Had it been so long with the wolves that it had learned their ways, or had it become dumb with terror? No sound came from its lips but a low fret.

Old Tara drew his fingers over its shock of matted hair and parted its toes; but its shape was enough for him--it was no Hindu. Not one white spot was to be seen about it. No matter; the old man was confident he had found the lost one.

They were now at the very head of the koond, far away from the rest of their party, who were vainly beating the bushes about the sloping ground below the temple. The long night-watch had made them hungry. Tara looked about for a breakfast for his companions. The chasm which divided the koond had changed to a rushing torrent during the rains, and he searched along its banks for the nest of the black goose.

Date-trees, which abound in every part of Bengal, were not far to seek. He quickly wove himself a basket of leaves, and brought back his spoil in triumph. He found Oliver cutting up a strip of bark with his penknife, talking to the woman as best he could.

He had discovered that her name was Kopatree. She had been tending cows among the hills. A buffalo had attacked them; she fled for her life, and lost her way. If they could only guide her back to the road or to the village by the Rana's castle, she could find her way.

"Have you been working at the sanitarium high up on the hills?" asked Oliver.

"Yes; before the rains began." She remembered the weeping beebee, and her distress for the lost one.

All agreed it would not be safe to take the long walk through the jungle towards the ruined temple, as the child might set up screaming any moment, and bring the wolf's mate upon them, with the whole pack at his heels. No; they must steal away while the wolves were well settled in their mid-day sleep. Better climb the rocks under which they were resting, and seek hospitality at the Rana's castle.

When this decision was reached, Oliver slid down into the pit, with his strips of bark in his pocket. He had no scruple about appropriating the dirty blanket, resolving to buy its luckless owner a better in Noak-holly bazaar.

His father's sailors had so often brought back some strange pet from foreign parts, to amuse them on their homeward voyage, that he was not so afraid of touching the wolf as many boys would have been. Once they had had a lion cub, and twice a bear, so that he had had a little training as a menagerie-keeper. He tore off a strip of the blanket, and knelt down, with his little bundle of splints by his side, and set the poor broken leg as well as he was able, keeping the splints in place with his blanket-bandages. This done, he clambered out of the pit with the end of the rope in his hand, and tethered the wolf to the nearest tree, for the rope uncoiled to a considerable length.

Tara Ghur was impatient to be gone, for he knew that a storm was impending, was stealing over them, with the growing heat of the day. Suddenly in a moment the mighty trees of the forest swayed hither and thither, bowing their giant heads as a furious gust of wind swept through their leafy arcades; and he knew it was time to be gone.

Making prize of the remainder of the dirty blanket, he slung the child to his back. The bag of atta and the pot of bird-lime were left behind under a heap of stones. The old man led them by a path the wild goats had made. As they began to climb the steep ascent, he grasped Oliver by one hand, Kopatree seized the other, and so between them they almost carried him along, until the topmost height was reached.

*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?