Chapter IV: Part 4

Oliver's heart gave a great bound. Oh no, it was not fear! But he felt the presence of danger, and his cheek grew pale with excitement. Not a shot was fired; not a sound escaped them. There must be nothing to intimidate the other inmates of the koond which might be following. The dead silence was broken only by the tiger's grunting. Did it scent its foes in the trees around? It did what nothing but a tiger could ever do--sent its innocent young cub before it into the danger. What a contrast between the tiger and the wolf! But for once the unsuspecting young one did not fall a sacrifice to its mother's selfishness. It ran towards the water, crouching in the moonje grass which tigers love so well. Another furious onslaught from the jogies, and the mother flashed past like lightning, rearing up and roaring as it plunged into the jheel. The scouts came down from the trees and began to talk. They were half afraid the tiger was the only game that would show that night. Should they move on to the second koond to seek for the wolves? Then Tara Ghur bade all be still. His ear detected a movement in the distance--a tremor among the leaves, which no one else would have perceived. The scouts changed their places, flying back to the trees, and blazed away as before.

They were near to that korinda bush, but they did not know it. The tiger had started, and the patriarch of the wolves gave tongue from the other koond.

Mr. Desborough turned away from the darkness of the koond to watch the gaunt, lean, savage forms that were gathering on the moonlit ground to follow the track of the tiger. A movement in the tangle around escaped him. But Tara Ghur was aware of it. Oliver saw him bend forward, and his eye was quick to follow the hunter's. Tara knew that something was coming along the track where he dug up the footprint.

That footprint! The father was thinking of it. The trace was so slight, yet it was exactly like Horace's. His heart was sickening with suspense. Were they on a wrong scent, after all? thought the major, when out leaped the family from the korinda, with answering cries to the leader of the pack, who was rushing down the slope. The appalling howls of his following, as they gathered from brake and bush, might have chilled the stoutest heart. No child was there. The tall grass bent and swayed about the tree; then a small white form bounded from the midst of it like a kangaroo, but the old gray wolf was beside it.

Shouts from opposite sides of the ravine gave warning that something had been sighted. The small white thing dropped in the towering grass. A gun was fired. It was Major Iffley's. The wolf had pounced upon her nursling. The gun was loaded with small shot for the purpose. The major fired along the ground. The wolf received the charge in her shoulder. They could see her clawing the earth as she felt the pain, and then dropped down as if she were dead in the tufted grass. They could hear the screams of the terrified child.

"Carl! Carl!" Mr. Desborough called in coaxing tones of fatherly endearment, which rose to command as he met with no reply. The scouts were darting from point to point, as far as ground and jungle permitted. The three friends sprang down from the trees, only charging Oliver to stay were he was. They loaded their guns with ball, and advanced cautiously to within a yard or so of the giant grass tuft. They stationed themselves at even distances, that whichever way the wolf leaped out they might be ready to shoot him sideways through the head, so that the ball should not enter the tuft of grass. Their first object was to rouse the wolf and make it show. They trusted that terror would prevent the child leaving the shelter in which it lay concealed.

Tara Ghur had broken off a tall branch from the tree in which he had remained, and creeping along one of its mighty arms, peered down into the grass, but could see nothing. He stirred it up with the broken branch, but roused nothing except a screaming pea-hen.

He leaped to the ground. "The wolf is gone!"

"But the child--the child!" gasped Mr. Desborough, laying down his gun and forcing his way into the tangled mass. No child was there. The wolf had doubled upon them so swiftly and so stealthily, it seemed as if the ground had opened to swallow it up. The scouts jumped down from their trees, and all separated, taking different paths, to try and find which way the wolf had gone,--all but the old shikaree and Oliver, who was still aloft. Mr. Desborough was foremost; he no longer waited for the hunter's guidance. Yes, he had seen his child. He believed now it was his fair-haired boy. He had seen him and lost him again. The thought was madness. The major, gun in hand, kept close beside him.

Tara Ghur, who seemed, like the owl, to possess the power of seeing in the dark, was tracing the way the wolf had come, not the path by which it had fled from them.

Oliver, beginning to be afraid of being left behind in so wild a spot, climbed down again and followed the hunter, who was the last to leave it. The sailor-boy had climbed so high into his tree, thinking to gain a more commanding view, that he had not seen all that was taking place at its foot. Having first met Oliver in the company of the Rana's son, old Tara Ghur regarded him with something of the devotion and respect he felt for his native chief. He knew the boy was safest by his side, and invited him by gesture to follow. So the two crept on through the pathless wild no foot but theirs had ever penetrated.

If Oliver had found it hard work forcing his way with Gobur through the grass clump by the river, it was nothing to the task before him now. There were sudden drops into unseen nullahs, or watercourses, and a dangerous climb in the darkness up the steep bank, facing rolling stones from the jagged heights above. Now and again their only course was to climb the trees, and swing themselves from bough to bough. But through it all the hunter traced out the path of the wolf with an unerring dexterity that was perfectly marvellous to Oliver, tracking its course to the sweeping boughs of the deserted korinda bush.

The bones about the gray wolf's home were gnawed and dry. It was evident the hungry mother had suppered her young family on snails and field-mice; and she must have gone far afield for these, for the hunting-grounds about the hairy nest had been clearing fast of late. Old Tara tried to explain his purpose, but Oliver did not half understand. He could only watch what the hunter was doing, and second his efforts whenever he could.

"Child been here, sahib!" exclaimed Tara Ghur suddenly, after carefully groping round and round the well-made lair.

But their object was to capture, not to kill, and Oliver began to wonder more and more how this could ever be effected.

The shikaree paused in perplexity. He had passed his life among the wildest fastnesses of the district. He had watched the ways of the living creatures who lorded it there. He had studied the tastes, habits, and disposition of every creature in the forest. He was well aware the wolves would draw to their lair with the return of day, and prepared to watch the night out by the korinda bush. Then a sudden thought seemed to strike him. He sprang up and began anew to examine the ground around the path the wolf had chosen. A deep hole, the burrow of some wild animal, gave him intense satisfaction. He heaved aside the decaying arm of a tree which had fallen across it. Oliver came to his help, and adding his strength to that of the wiry hunter, they dislodged it altogether, and laid the burrow open.

Oliver saw that it was a dangerous pitfall, and wondered what was to be done with it.

Tara leaped down and began to enlarge it with the hunting-knife he carried in his belt. Then he tore off a huge piece of bark from a neighbouring tree, and pulled up a shrub by the roots. With this impromptu shovel and broom he set himself to clear out the loose earth and stones which had collected in the bottom of the hole.

Oliver meanwhile was keeping guard over the shikaree's skin of meal and the earthen pot, which on this particular occasion did not contain water. What it did contain he could not imagine, for the edge was sticky in the extreme. Before the moon began to wane the burrow was enlarged to a good-sized pit. The shikaree grew exultant. He beckoned to Oliver to follow him, and the two wandered about among the trees until they found some giant leaves of a bauhinia creeper.

They stripped the stem as far as they could reach, and returned with their load of leaves to the edge of the pit.

The shikaree spread them on the ground before it. Then he smeared them over with the contents of his jar.

"What is it?" thought Oliver--"bird lime?"

Then he saw what the clever old man was about--making a wolf-trap.

*CHAPTER XIII.*

_*CAUGHT IN A TRAP.*_

Whilst Oliver and the old shikaree were working hard in the moonlight, Mr. Desborough and his friends were in hot pursuit of the flying wolves.

The major, who was the keenest sportsman of the three, gave it as his opinion that their wisest course was to keep the pack in sight. The wolf with the child was rushing from its covert in answer to the patriarch's call, and would be sure to join the others sooner or later.

Up came some of the jogies, breathless and panting, to declare they had heard the cry of the child far up the hill, toward the temple ruins. If so, the wolf must have been retreating to the second koond, on the other side of the hill. The deputy, who was anxious to pick up his nephew, turned back to beat it with another party of the jogies, who were examining the tracks about the jheel.

"Mind you beat up stream," shouted the major, as he sprang into his saddle, prepared to give chase to the wolves.

They came up with the pack at the head of a valley, where they were picking the bones of a spotted deer some tiger had brought down. But no child was among them. In a country so full of cover it was impossible to say where the little fugitive might be hiding. So they posted chakoos, or lookouts, all about, to give instantaneous notice if anything showed.

In the gray of the dawn, disheartened and weary, the friends drew together once again. Hunting-flasks were taken out, and counsel held in the weed-grown court of the temple.

"Our hour is coming," said the major cheerily. "Wait until the day is well up, and we shall find the child asleep under one of these bushes. Now for some lure to make it show. We must beat them all."

"And frighten him into idiocy, if his dawning sense has not been scared away already! He knew me no longer," exclaimed Mr. Desborough.

"Surely he would recognize his mother's voice," put in the deputy.

"I dare not risk the torture of suspense like this for her; but we might have Kathleen. If he remembers anything, it would be Kathleen," answered Mr. Desborough.

"Send for her at once without alarming Mrs. Desborough," said the deputy, taking out his pocket-book; and scribbling a note to his niece, he despatched his syce with it to Runnangore.

At a very early hour, Bona's dandy appeared once more at the gate of the compound at Noak-holly.

"I have come in the cool of the morning," she said, "to fetch your little girl to spend the day at Runnangore. You must not refuse her to me, dear Mrs. Desborough, for Mr. Desborough wishes her to accept my invitation."

But Kathleen did not much like Bona, and did not want to go, until Bona whispered, "Hush! not a word; but come you must. They are searching for Carl in the jungle."

Oh how tedious it seemed to wait until the little beebee was bathed and dressed!

In the meanwhile Oliver was nodding in his tree, waiting for the shikaree's signal. The old man was listening for the faintest sound. Not a quiver in the bush below escaped him; not the beat of a weary wing as the night-birds drew to their haunts; not a tremble in the grass at his feet, where the children of the day were awaking.

The wind changed with the daybreak, and the wary hunter changed his position with it. He swung himself from tree to tree, leaving no footprint on the ground that the keen scent of the wolf might detect. Avoiding the trees where the branches grew low to the ground, he stationed the boy at a far greater distance than before. Again they watched and waited. A few sharp, trotting steps went by, and a dhole sprang from the thicket.

"Bear," murmured Tara, as the creature turned aggressive, and dashing out with a rush upon the wild dog, charged him fiercely.

In the noise of their scuffle other sounds were lost. But the flap of the vulture's wing, the scream of the kite, and the hoarse gobble-gobble of the still more numerous turkey-buzzards grew more and more distinct as the red light of morning painted the eastern sky.

The sun arose, and the furry tyrants of the midnight fled before it. The tiger was slumbering in the moonje grass he loves so well; the spotted leopard chose out his favourite tree, uprising from the thickest underwood, and coiled himself up for his mid-day rest; the bear trotted off to his den behind the fallen rock; the spotted deer roamed freely; and the peacocks, with which the jungle abounded, spread their glorious tails in the sunlight.

Then Tara Ghur descended his tree, and signing to Oliver to follow, stealthily approached the pit.

The large leaves of the bauhinia creeper and the pranes tree, a kind of sycamore, with which he had carpeted the path of the wolf, had been trampled down and displaced. Some had altogether vanished. The old man's eyes were flashing with their steeliest blue as he felt success was sure.

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?

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.

*CHAPTER XV.*

_*A LITTLE SAVAGE.*_

As the search-party were descending the hills, the Thibetan peeped out from the water-shed. The sheen of her resplendent jewels caught Oliver's eye, so he sent his uncle's syce to persuade her to go with them to the Beebee Desborough, who knew her. She was mourning over her lost cows, which she feared some of the wandering robber tribes would drive away if they found them straying. They all wore necklets of red cloth, she said, which she had sewn with cowries in patterns.

Oliver was counting up his money, to see if he could buy her a cow, when one of the jogies declared he had seen them rush out from the jungle when they were beating the second koond. He was certain she would find them roaming amidst the bushes below the ruins. So on she went, for the vultures and kites were sweeping round and round in great disorder--a sure presage of the approach of the storm Tara Ghur had predicted. A gust of cold wind swept down from the highest peaks, driving before it a dark and whirling cloud, which covered the travellers with a thick pall of dust.

They groped their way, afraid to linger in the dangerous neighbourhood of the koonds, and still more afraid of losing each other.

Major Iffley rode about, looking up the stragglers; and making the men close round the dandy, they marched on. A brooding silence filled the air, only broken at intervals by the vulture's scream or the beat of retreating wings. Mr. Desborough parted the curtains of the dandy and felt about, to assure himself both children were safe. Carl waked with the darkness, and began to howl--the same wild howl which had frightened the old shikaree in the morning. He was not there now to point out its danger. But the Thibetan put her hand to her ear again and again as she listened. Was there an answer from the distant koond?

"Do you hear anything?" asked Oliver, as the first returning gleam of light showed them the gate of Mr. Desborough's compound. They had reached his home, and might have passed it unawares, so great was the darkness of the coming storm. The trees in his garden bent their proud heads, and swayed from side to side like jungle grass as the rain came down at last in a mighty torrent. There was just light enough to distinguish the white columns of the veranda through the open gate. There was a general rush to shelter, for in those brief moments the carriage drive had become a rushing river. The gleam of the lighted lamps in Mr. Desborough's hall cast a glow of welcome on the sodden curtains of the dandy. Mr. Desborough made his men carry it right through the folding doors, and set it down on the middle of the floor, whilst he carefully closed them behind it. Major Iffley had divined his intention, and was already shutting every other door which opened into the hall. Oliver and his uncle were both shut out, and groped their way to the dining-room window, where Bona was standing watching the storm.

"You here!" they both exclaimed in surprise, as she opened it to let them in.

"Why, yes," she hesitated. "I grew so impatient I came across to see if you had got home. Have you found anything?"

"Yes, yes!" they reiterated, as Mrs. Desborough herself appeared behind her.

"Where is Kathleen?" she asked, looking beyond the deputy--whom she failed to recognize in the gloom of the storm--to the dripping coolies. The men were crowding in the veranda, rubbing their wet feet and wringing the water from their calico garments.

In the hubble-bubble of the many tongues she failed to understand anything.

"Kathleen is all right," said Bona quickly. "I told you she was with her father."

"Calm your anxiety, my dear Mrs. Desborough," began the deputy, with a seriousness which he intended should prepare the way; but it only startled her.

"What does all this mean?" she asked, looking from one to the other.

"It means--well, it means--" and the deputy coughed to gain time.--"Just see, Oliver," he added aside.

"Bother it!" muttered the boy; "I can't open this door."

Bona hastened to his help; but they pushed against it in vain.

Mrs. Desborough, always apprehensive since Carl was lost, was growing desperate. "Where is Kathleen?" she reiterated.

"Call her," suggested the coughing deputy to his nephew.

"Kathleen!" shouted Oliver. "Do come to your mother."

"Are the doors all shut?" demanded Mr. Desborough in return.

"Yes, yes!" echoed a chorus of voices as Mr. Desborough walked in, carrying what seemed to his wife to be nothing but a big bundle of calico.

Kathleen flew to her side. Mrs. Desborough caught hold of her by both hands.

"Do not look at me, mamma; look at what we've found," said Kathleen excitedly.

"A child," continued Mr. Desborough, speaking as quietly as he could. "Come and look, my dear."

A flash of lightning lit up the darkened room for one brief moment, and left it blacker than before.

"Bring lights," said Mr. Desborough.

"Yes; and order in the roast-joint, for this poor lad has scarcely tasted food all day," put in Major Iffley, laying his hand on Oliver's shoulder. "Besides," he added in a low aside, "nothing will be so attractive to that young animal as the savoury smell of the roast. I speak advisedly."

"Let us have our dinner, my dear," said Mr. Desborough, turning to Mrs. Desborough as she bent over the bundle in his arms.

The lights quickly appeared, followed by the ayah with sponge, soap, and towel.

He took the sponge from her hand, and gently washed the queer little face that was hiding itself from the light under his arm. He turned Carl slowly round towards Mrs. Desborough. But no amount of dirt, no scars, no scratches, could hide the truth from his mother. She clasped him to her, exclaiming, "It is ours--our own--our Carl!"

"Can it be possible?" cried Bona.