I.

Outside the village a man stood alone in the moonless night. Yet it was not dark; for in the unending depths of violet blue the stars hung many-hued and many-sized--each in their order, so clear, so bright, that the simile "as one star differeth from another in glory" stood out in all its vivid truth, undimmed by the mists of a Western atmosphere.

The man, however, neither looked nor thought of the stars. He had seen them shine thus after the winter rains ever since he had been able to see, and his eyes were full of the shadowy stretch of level fields which seemed to rise towards the pale horizon. There was a fresh, damp smell in the air, and close to his feet some lighter shadows surrounded by darker ones showed that the recent rains had been heavy enough to leave fresh pools of water in the hollows whence the village had been dug--hollows like the skeleton at the feast, serving to remind the inhabitants that their origin was dust, their end the grave.

Toil and moil flung their refuse into these as if in derision; the pitiless eastern rain washed the mud from wall and roof back to its birthplace; but year after year the antlike builders piled more mud over the ruins of the old, until the village, girt by its grave, grew dignified by age, and, gaining renewal from its own mortality, rose higher and higher above the surrounding plain.

Such a treeless, formless plain, circled round by that fillet of paler sky where the stars shone dimly, like distant fire-flies. Not a landmark anywhere, save, behind the man, his own village. By day an ant-hill of low huts; in the soft darkness piled like a fort, lightless, soundless. He turned towards it, his eyes seeking a central block standing higher than the rest. It was his house; the house where he and his forebears for many a generation had been born; where he had stood by his father's death-bed and taken the reins of office from the dying hands; where he, too, hoped to die and pass the headship of the village to some stalwart son. And it was childless as yet. A curious thrill seemed to join heart and hand and brain in a trinity of skill and strength and love, for yonder in that dim house a woman was bringing a child into the world with pains beyond the primal curse; and he, the father, driven by a restlessness new to him, had wandered out into the night to seek patience in action. It could not be over yet; his mother had said it would be long, and the jackals had not yet given their second cry. He turned again to the fields.

"The land is good," he murmured to himself, "the crop is good, and the rain is good. If only this be a son--"

He drew a long breath that was half a sigh. A stir in the thorn enclosures where the cattle were folded for the night caught his practised ear, and he walked towards them, listening. A feeble bleat followed by a patter of feet made him push aside the rude hurdle barring the entrance. Among the crowding sheep and goats the first lamb of the season lay beside its mother, and his eyes lit up as he forced his way through the circle of uncertain elders to reach it. He was in luck to be there, else the first-fruits would have been dead by morning. He lifted the lamb gently, thinking the while that he must divide the flock ere another night, and so run no more risks. As he made his way back to the village with swinging strides the mother trotted after him, bleating, and the village dogs snuffed at his heels silently; they knew better than to bark at Gunesh Chund the head-man, tall and strong; looking all the taller by reason of his white turban and the lank folds of white drapery falling from his high shoulders--so tall, that he had to stoop in order to enter the door leading to the outer court of his house. Within were lights and a cackle of women's voices; but here, in the wide expanse of beaten mud floor, darkness and silence, save for the cud-chewing of the milch kine ranged in one corner, and the rasping rub of a weighted halter through its ring, as the head-man's pony turned at its master's entrance.

Gunesh stood still and called, "Mother! mother!"

An old woman with an oil cresset held above her head came to the inner doorway and peered into the darkness through the flowers and branches garlanding the entrance. Then she set aside the swinging sickle hung to bar all passage to evil spirits, and, stepping out, shook her head at the mute inquiry in her son's eyes.

"Not yet, O Gunesh. But all goes well. 'Twill come with the dawn, like many another. And fear not, O my child. 'Tis a son. The stars and the omens are agreed."

A faint bleat made her set the cresset nearer. "What hast thou there, O Gunesh?"

"The firstling, mother. 'Twas in the fold. I have brought it hither for safety."

The old woman's face shone with delight.

"A ewe lamb! 'Tis another omen; and there is luck in the house to-night; for as the ewe lamb to the fold so is the male child to the hearth. Have no fear, O Gunesh! Have no fear!"

She laid one wrinkled hand on her son's arm, and, with the lamp held high in the other, gazed fondly on his face, curiously like her own--the same refined, aquiline features and narrow forehead; but the man's was less alert than the woman's, and softer, especially now as he stood hesitating.

"And--and--Veru?" he asked, somewhat sheepishly.

His mother shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, Veru! She is well enough. She suffers, but that is the woman's part. 'Twould have been better for her years ago. But she will forget. All women do, and the omens are good--"

A querulous complaint from within, followed by women's voices, made her pause.

"I must return. Folk are so ignorant nowadays, I wonder aught comes right. But thou needst not fear, my son; the old mother knows it all. So! the lamps are lit, the flowers strewn, the spices burned, the chants raised duly. The Great Ones must needs be pleased; and look you, Guneshwa! the sun comes back with the dawn."

"Yea, mother," he answered, meekly, "and sure the firstling shows luck."

When she left him he threw some straw in one corner for the ewe, and guided the tottering lamb towards it, smiling to himself over the frail, ridiculous attempts at escape made by the little creature. The bleats subsided into contented silence, and he groped a stumbling way up the narrow steps leading to the flat, square roof of his house. There he sat down, his back against the parapet wall which gave seclusion to the women's court below, whence a glimmer of light and a murmur of voices reached eyes and ears. The rest was darkness and silence.

"With the dawn," he muttered--"it will come with the dawn."

He took a nugget of opium from an inner pocket, broke off a bit, and having swallowed it set himself deliberately towards patience. Most men of his race would have found the situation simple, and their minds, if on the rack of expectation, would have been free from doubt. Gunesh Chund's heart, however, was softer than most men's--softer than his mother, for instance, deemed a true man's should be. It was occupied with one thought. Supposing it was a girl, after all? What should he do? He could not feel orthodox disgust or anger at the idea. Yet he longed for a son, if only because it would settle so many vexed questions and make life so much easier. Even now with his mother and Veru peace was not always to be had; but how would it be if the second wife with whom the former threatened him came to make a third in the quarrel? Sooner or later he would have to make a fourth, of course; that was always the end, and he had all a kindly man's hatred of tears and fuss.

Yet a son he must have, and that quickly, for, as his mother said, truly the cousin's young wife was becoming unbearably pretentious over those big boys of hers. What wonder? Were they not what all boys should be? Gunesh Chund felt himself mean and spiritless as he recognized his own admiration for those whom his mother regarded as mere pretenders to the hereditary office of head-man. Did not Kishnu, their black-browed, sonsy mother, openly declare that, even if Gunesh had a son, hers might yet be preferred as being older, should autumn chills and summer pestilence carry the present incumbent off before his time? At least so the old mother said. And one thing was certain: Devi Ditta and Pooram Lal, the village elders, were no friends of his since that dispute about the common lands. They might side with the other branch. Without doubt a son must be had to carry on work in this world and give life to the next.

And if this was a girl? A bleat from the lamb below made him suddenly smile at the very idea of baby fingers playing with his beard and baby kisses on his face. Were girls' kisses less sweet, girls' fingers less soft?

He shifted uneasily, conscious that his thoughts were heresy in his mother's eyes. Doubtless she was right. He would have to marry again, since Veru would plainly be accursed, unable, even after all the pilgrimages and vows, to perform her first duty. As he sat trying to harden his heart, wild, skirling chants rose every now and again from the women's court, and at each outburst he shifted again uneasily; for through the noise he seemed to hear the cry it was meant to deaden, lest a complaint might anger the Dread Givers of Pain and Pleasure. And Veru had been good to him. He sat on till the dream-compeller made even his hazy thought more hazy, and patience came with sleep.

When he awoke the dawn was past, and as he stretched his long length skyward in the first enjoyment of past sleep, the whole circle of earth and heaven round him was ablaze with the sun rising gloriously over the cloudless world. He stood so, for a moment, the centre of his universe, contented, serene, ere memory returned to him. Then he made his way down to the yard with fear at his heart. All was still as the grave, even in the women's court, and it was a relief when he peered past the swinging sickle to see his mother wrapped in her quilt dozing by the open fire-place in one corner.

He went over to her and touched her on the arm.

"Mother!" he called.

She was alert in an instant, and looking in his face answered his mute question fiercely.

"It is a girl--a useless girl! What need to wake thee for such bitter news? The woman is accursed."

The quick assent rising to his lips was stilled by a little cry from within the quilt. Something--he knew not what it was--thrilled him and kept him silent.

"Is--is it pretty, mother?" he asked, sheepishly, after a while.

The old lady eyed him with suspicious scorn.

"See for thyself, ninny," she replied, shortly.

Gunesh Chund felt a distinct disappointment as he looked down at his first-born. He had forgotten what new-born babies were like since the days when, as a boy, he was admitted to such sights. This one struck him as ugly, or at least as less pleasing than a lamb or a calf.

"God send it be not ill-looking, mother!" he blurted out in a tone of alarm.

She laughed, still in the same short and scornful fashion.

"Lo! there never was a plain woman among us. The child is well enough, and favours thee. Is it not enough that it should be a girl?"

He did not hear the latter sentence. Accustomed in all things to accept his mother's fiat, he was lost in trying to trace the likeness to himself, and, to aid his efforts, drew a reflective forefinger over the featureless face, feeling, as he did so, that strange thrill at his heart again. Suddenly, as he neared the mouth, the lips trembled and a little red tongue shot swiftly on his finger-tip. He burst into a great roar of delighted laughter.

"Ho! ho! Look, mother, look!"

"Didst never see a child suck before, O Gunesh Chund, lumberdar?"^[1] retorted the old woman, crossly, as she tucked the baby away again. He felt abashed, but the laughter had left him at peace with all mankind.

"And Veru? How is she?"

This was too much. The stern old lady rose to her full height and faced him. Her grey hair, disordered by the night's watching, escaped from the close folds of her veil, and the quilt slipping from her showed her tall, erect as a girl. She threw out her right hand in declamation:

"Thou art no better than a woman thyself, O Gunesh! To ask after Veru, the wife of disgrace! Thou shouldst not have thought of her. Were it not better she were dead? Ungrateful! wicked! For she must be wicked to frustrate my prayers and alms. Lo, have I not fulfilled her every wish these nine months past? And now 'tis 'How is Veru?' forsooth, and no thought of the mother who has slaved in vain. But this is an end. She is accursed, and thou must bring a new wife to the hearth if thou wouldst not lose thine own soul, and the soul of those who begat thee. Leave Veru her girl, and be kind to her, if thou art a ninny. There are other women in the world who can bear sons."

As Gunesh crept out of the house feeling small, despite his great height, he told himself it was only what he had expected. For all that, his mother might have waited a day or two ere speaking of the new wife, within Veru's hearing also. God send she had been asleep after her long suffering!

He was so dispirited that he did not care to face the dharmsala with its congregation of elders ready to condole, and its younger men inclined to sneer. So he gave up his morning pipe, and carried the firstling to take possession of the lambing fold. As he walked along in the sunshine, as he had walked in the shadow, with it in his arms, he felt its little tongue sucking at his hand, and it seemed to hurt him, body and soul.

II.

The forty days of seclusion being over, Veru, in her finest clothes, sat cross-legged on a string bed ready to receive company. The court-yard had been freshly swept, the brass cooking-vessels scoured and set in a row against the mud wall, where the sun smote them into retaliating rays. A few flat baskets of sweets, covered with penny-halfpenny Manchester pocket-handkerchiefs printed in the semblance of a pack of cards, stood ready for the expected guests, and Gunesh Chund's mother had been busy all the morning making a sort of furmenty in honour of the occasion; for, though she considered her labour thrown away on the birth of a girl, she would not for the world have omitted a single ceremony, and so have given colour to outside condolence. Veru herself was a delicate-looking, pretty woman of about six-and-twenty, with a broad forehead, and a thin-lipped, sensitive mouth--both of which characteristics were more blemishes than beauties in the opinion of her neighbours. Her chief defect, however, in the eyes of the stalwart, open-hearted, shrill-voiced, village women lay in a certain refined reserve, which they set down to conceit born of her pretensions to scholarship--though how any woman could be so wrong-minded as to usurp man's estate by learning to read and write passed their simple understanding. But Veru, who had lived with a rich uncle during her girlhood, had shared her cousin's desultory visits to a mission school for a year or two, and returned to her parents and marriage with a book in which she could read glibly, and a reputation for writing. She could also knit many-hued comforters in brioche stitch, and darn strips of net in divers patterns--appalling and almost incredible culture, viewed with disfavour by all save Gunesh, who was simple enough to admire it; probably because she was woman enough to admire him immensely.

The infant, to whom the name of NihÂli had been given, lay in her arms, bedizened into the semblance of a performing monkey; tight little silk trousers on the bandy legs, a tinsel-decorated muslin bodice, and a flowing veil, the size of a pocket-handkerchief, disposed over the round skull-cap where a black fringe of wool simulated hair. On this outfit Veru had spent much time and trouble, while her mother-in-law grumbled under her breath at the expense, or openly said that in her day a decent woman would have thought it shame to make such a fuss over a girl, after keeping her master waiting ten long years for a child.

There was bitter war between these two women outwardly: yet, however fiercely Veru combated the elder woman's views, in her heart of hearts she could not overcome the inherited conviction that the meanest thing on God's earth, was a sonless wife. Cultured retorts as to what she had heard and read in school of Western opinions, and of the sex of the Queen-Empress, did very well as lethal weapons, but as inward balm were most unsatisfactory. Often and often, after a passage of arms in which her more dexterous point had reduced her adversary to the usual appeal for patience, she would creep away into one of the dark, windowless rooms opening off the central court-yard, on pretence that the light prevented her baby from sleeping. There, safe from observation, she would weep salt tears over its unconscious face. After all her prayers and alms, why had not Fate given her a son? How much easier it would have been for everybody, Fate included; for now high Heaven would have to be wearied once more!

She had seen but little of her husband during her days of seclusion, so the task of shutting her white teeth over a retort when he was by had not been a very difficult one. But now the every-day life was beginning again, and it would be harder to keep up the forbearance--though she was clever enough to see that it earned his gratitude.

He came in before going to his afternoon's work in the fields to inspect the preparations. The sight of the bedizened baby awoke his broad laugh.

"Ho! ho! ho! Grandmother, see what a figure Veru hath made of the child! For sure it is like the puppets Dya Ram brought round at DiwÂli Fair, that danced on a string!"

"I'm glad thy wits give thee sense to see the folly of dressing the child so," grumbled the old woman. "In my day there were none of those fal-lals on farmers' children. We left them to the silly town's-folk."

"In your day, mother, farmers' wives did not know how to make them; but I cut and sewed them all," retorted Veru, with studious courtesy.

"Aye, aye, that's true," remarked her husband, relieved. "Thou hast clever fingers despite they are so small.--Hath she not, mother?"

"Clever, mayhap; but in my time wives found better work than snipping and sewing. They made stalwart sons for the hearth, and left clothes to the tailor. 'Tis the other way on now, I suppose. Thou wilt send to the tailor for a son soon, I suppose. It is time."

"Nay, but the mother is right," interrupted Gunesh Chund, hastily, seeing Veru's eyes begin to flash; "the little one is like a puppet, as I said, Veru, and 'tis happier with its arms and legs free. I love to watch it struggling on its back like a young duck with the megrims. 'Tis comical. But feed it well, wife; if 'twere a calf I would hold it over-thin. Young things need fat. Do as the mother bids thee, and 'tis sure to thrive. Had she not daughters of her own in her time?" His voice had a ring of appeal in it.

"Aye, and some of them in man's guise," muttered the old lady as she watched him bending over the baby. Nevertheless, she spoke more softly as she bade him get to his fields, the proper place for a man.

"True, mother, true," he assented happily, as he went to the door with her. "And there is no place I like so well. 'Tis good to stand knee-deep in young corn when it grows blue-green, as this year. Thou shouldst see it in the dip by the sandy bottom. And see the dappled sky like a partridge breast, auguring more rain. A good harvest, mother! A good harvest and new dresses--"

She checked him. "Nay, Gunesh, there is the new wife to think of first. Good harvest days are good wedding days."

They were beyond ear-shot, and yet the man gave a quick glance at the woman within.

"Hush, mother, hush!" he said, almost in a whisper. "Should a man take the name of another woman in his mouth, with the cry of a month-old babe in his ear? There is time yet."

"Time!" she echoed. "Time, indeed! 'Tis not time, but will, is wanting. Get thee gone to thy fields--thank Heaven thou art not a ninny there--for see, yonder comes Kishnu to the reception, bringing all her three. The jade! 'Tis only to crow over our girl!"

Gunesh tried to frown as he stood irresolute, but his mild face refused the task.

"May be, mother," he replied simply, "yet were the boys mine I would take them wherever I went, crow or no crow. They are so sweet."

His mother stamped her foot. "Aye, aye! Sweet for sure. And will not the eldest make a fine lumberdar? Folk might almost deem him thy son."

"I could wish none better."

Foiled by his gentleness, she watched his tall figure go down the alley for a minute, and then began the attack in a more promising quarter.

"Here comes Kishnu, Veru. Did I not say she would be the first? The crowing cock loves early hours. She hath her three with her, and Gunesh, poor soul, must needs stop and fondle them. He loves those boys; and who can blame him? Sure, a man's heart cannot live in his breast always!"

"That is true; but when a man gives it to a wife she can keep it from straying," retorted Veru. She was never without words, but they were empty diet, and she could not help looking at Kishnu's boys with hungry eyes.

"I scarce liked to bring Shivu here to-day," quoth the latter, settling herself with a flounce among the voluminous skirts that hung half-way down her trousered legs. "You see, he grows so big--almost too much of a man for these women's doings."

She tittered, twisted her huge nose-ring to one side, disposed her youngest at her capacious bosom, and, thus prepared for conversation, began afresh in a shrill, strident voice:

"So that's your girl, Veru! Sure you have dressed it for the wedding already! Early days; but with a daughter one has to think betimes.--Is it not so, grandmother?"

"Our women have no difficulty in finding husbands," replied Veru's mother-in-law, who, whatever she might say herself, was not inclined to stand impertinence from outsiders. "But perhaps in thy family 'tis a different story."

Now Kishnu was no beauty, despite her fruitfulness. Neither was she ready of tongue. So she sniffed, comforting herself with the knowledge that words, after all, were but poor weapons against facts. As an immediate revenge, however, she dragged the most disagreeable topic she could think of into the conversation.

"Guneshwa looked but ill at ease, it struck me. No doubt the new settlement in the village gives him trouble."

"What new settlement?" asked Veru, sharply.

Settlement time meant war time, since in the compiling of new records lay ample opportunity for spite; and her husband as head-man had enemies.

Kishnu tittered again. This was better than she had expected.

"So! I have broken the seal of a secret. Mayhap Gunesh said nothing lest it should worry thee during the time of recovery. But 'tis so. My man heard it awhile ago through his friends at court; for certain, yesterday. Sure, Veru, 'tis a thousand pities this is a girl. Gunesh could have written a son's name as his heir in the new papers; and that would have ended dispute forever."

The lumberdar's women folk looked at each other, for once in accord. Gunesh had hidden this thing from them, and they were too proud to show how it had moved them. They preferred letting the shaft rankle, perhaps needlessly, rather than inquire further of Kishnu.

"'Tis no pity at all," retorted Veru, tossing her head. "There can be no dispute that I know of. And I prefer girls."

This went too far for her mother-in-law. At the risk of Kishnu's delectation, she lost patience.

"There 'tis! Heard one ever the like? 'I prefer girls.' So! thus thou mockest the great ones, and by idle words turn my prayers to naught. 'Tis too vexatious--"

"Girls are every whit as good as boys. The great Queen--"

"Pshaw! I am sick of the great Queen! Why did she come to breed dissension, and teach young women to mock at the old? Though, for sure, she herself knows better, seeing she hath proved her worth by a good family of sons."

"So may NihÂli in her time."

"What! That sickly thing! Thou wilt scarce rear her to the first year, and mayhap 'tis better so. 'Dead girls,' thou knowest, 'bring live boys.'"

Veru's face of fear sent a pang of remorse to a heart which beat true after its fashion, and the old lady went on, hastily:

"Nay, daughter-in-law! Perchance I am wrong. The child dwindles a bit, no more. I will make seven spices for it. 'Twill thrive if only thou wilt be reasonable, and save thyself from tantrums and tears. 'Tis the calf has the pain, mind you, if the cow steals green wheat."

"And with a girl the mind is at rest," continued Kishnu, in malicious consolation. "Now, with me, if the charcoal rubs from their foreheads I'm agog with fear of the evil eye, and the rest of my day is wasted in prayers and offerings. As thou sayst, Veru, girls are better."

Veru had no answer ready; and even when the stream of visitors set in, full of chattering congratulations and condolences, she did not find her tongue. The noise, she said, made her head ache and disturbed the baby. She stripped the finery from its little limbs, and, wrapping it warmly in her veil, held it tight to her breast, refusing to uncover it in order to gratify the curious.

Gunesh, coming in from the darkening fields, with their calm in his face, found her crying in the inner room.

"She wants to bring another wife home even now. She will not have patience and wait awhile." That was the burden of her complaint, while Gunesh sat comforting her uneasily.

"Surely, Veru, I have waited," he said, after a time. "Few would have been so patient; but thou art a good wife and duteous even with the mother."

"And thou! Oh, thou art good, Gunesh--so good to me! See, thy patience hath brought NihÂli. Wait a year, only a year longer, husband, and it will bring thee a son."

He looked at the mother and child with kindling eyes.

"A year! Surely, surely! That is but fair. So dry thine eyes, wife, for I am hungry."

That night, when Veru had retired to her bed with the baby, and he sat smoking with his mother in the outer yard, he asked her wistfully if she really thought the child was dwindling.

She turned on him fiercely, perhaps from a feeling of pity.

"And if it does, canst not trust me to physic it? Or wouldst thou have a man doctor to thy women's rooms? They tell me the travelling one sent on his rounds by the Sirkar^[2] is in the next village but now. Shall I bid him come, since thou seemst to hold by new-fangled ways?"

Gunesh Chund filled his pipe again with poppy-leaves and tobacco, and watched his mother carding cotton viciously. What would she say if she knew of the promise he had made to Veru? The narcotic did not soothe him; and when sleep failed, he strolled out to where the village elders sat discussing the possible effects of this new settlement on the total of revenue due from the community. The familiar company was a relief, though it brought a doubt of his own wisdom in waiting a year. Still it was only a year. After that, if Veru failed to bear him a son, his duty to himself, to his ancestors, and to the Sirkar demanded another wife.

III.

Whether Gunesh Chund's mother, when she prophesied evil to little NihÂli, did so from conviction or temper, it was not long before her words came true. Despite the marvellous seven spices, and many another time-honoured remedy, the baby dwindled and pined unaccountably. Then came a day when Veru, half distraught and absolutely helpless, sat with it in her arms, sullen and silent. The old women of the village dropped in one after the other, more from curiosity than sympathy, each laying down the law as to some infallible nostrum, whose efficacy they defended against other views in high-pitched cackle. At last Veru, whose smattering of knowledge only brought incredulity without lending aid, declaring she would not have the child tormented further, laid it to her breast, and turned her back upon hoarded wisdom. Only when Gunesh Chund came wandering in restlessly from the fieldwork, which for the first time in his life failed to bring him peace, she unclasped her straining arms to show him the still face lying against the full breast that roused no sign of life or desire.

A piteous sight. The big tears ran down his cheeks and fell on the soft, closed hand. He took a corner of his cotton shawl and wiped them away clumsily but with infinite tenderness.

"Sure, thou dost love her, though she is a girl," said Veru, with the calm of despair.

The man broke into a sob and turned away.

"Mother, canst thou do nothing?" he asked, in all the wistful confidence of a child, laying his great hand on the old woman's head as she bent over her task of kneading the dough for his supper.

"Do! What is to be done with a woman who cries out if the child is touched? I tell thee, O Guneshwa, the little one is bewitched--though God only knows why any one should trouble to cast an eye on a girl. Ask Munlya. Ask Premi, or Chuni, or any wise woman. But Veru heeds us not, saying the books deny it. So be it! The child will die!"

Gunesh Chund lingered, hesitating.

"I--I--perhaps, mother, 'twould be better to fetch the doctor. He is here still, they say."

His mother sprang to her feet, all the vigour and fire of her past youth in eyes and gesture.

"That I should have lived to hear such words in the house where I came a modest bride, where never man set foot save thy father and mine! Wilt thou cast thy honour and mine in the dust for a baby girl? Be it so, Gunesh! Choose now between her and me; or choose, rather, between Veru's barren kisses and my curse, for the child will die if the evil eye be not averted by charms. Choose, I say; for, by my father's soul, if this bastard half-a-man enters the house, I leave it!"

"Nay, mother! I did but suggest. Veru--"

"O Veru! Veru! I am sick of the name. 'Tis she who hath bewitched thee; 'tis her evil eye--"

He interrupted her fiercely, seizing her by the wrist.

"Peace, I say, mother! Peace! I will not hear such words."

"They are true for all that. She hath bewitched thee!"

They stood for a moment face to face, so like each other in their anger and dread. Then the strong man quailed, and fled before her words and his own thoughts. He was no wiser than his fellows, for all the soft heart that betrayed him into progress; perhaps less so, since the superstitions of his fathers enslaved his mind without controlling his affections. He wandered into the fields once more, where the rows of blossoming mustard sown among the wheat showed like a yellow sea against the horizon, but close at hand broke the green gloom of the earing corn in long, curling waves crested with gold--a sight dear to husbandmen's eyes! Yet it brought no comfort to the dull ache in Gunesh's heart, which drove him to finish work with the first excuse of waning light.

The child was at least no worse. Perhaps the warmth had soothed its pain; perhaps the feeble life was sinking silently; but the ignorant, loving eyes that watched it knew not whether the stillness made for sleep or death.

Save for Gunesh Chund and his wife the house was empty, for his mother had sought the relief of words with a neighbouring crony.

"Veru," said Gunesh in a whisper, as if the darkening walls had ears, "dost think the doctor might do her good? The mother will not have him here--mayhap she is right--but I could take the child to him."

"O husband!" Brought face to face with decision, the woman shrank from action. "I know not, and the mother would be so angry."

But the slower mind and warmer heart had been at work on the problem, and ciphered it out once and for all.

"She need never know. Sit within, silent, as if thou hadst it still, should she return. I shall not be long; so give the child to me."

Half fearful, half pleased at his decision, the mother shifted her burden to his awkward arms. How small, how light it seemed, hidden away in the folds of his flowing plaid-like shawl, as he passed through the twilight alleys on his way to the camping-ground where, in the mud caravanserai, the travelling vaccinator was to be found! Neighbours, resting after the day's labour, called to him in various greeting, and he paused to reply with dull patience, conscious always of the unseen burden near his heart. So had he carried the firstling lamb on the night when NihÂli was born. How it had struggled to escape, and sucked at his restraining hand in fierce desire for life! A fear lest the child's quiet was death made him turn aside more than once into a darker corner to look and listen.

Still with the same dull patience he sat down before the vacant room in the serai to await the vaccinator's return; for patience and doggedness are the peasant farmer's unfailing inheritance, not to be reft from him by tyrants or strangers. Some camel-drivers, newly arrived, were cooking their food at a blazing wood-fire in the open, whence the flames threw long shadows, distorted out of all human semblance, into the far corners of the court-yard, where a circle of kneeling camels browsed upon a pile of green branches. Familiar sights and sounds to Gunesh's eyes and ears, yet to-night, with that strange burden near his heart, seeming out of place and unexpected.

Meanwhile Veru, with empty arms and nervous fingers twisting and turning themselves on each other restlessly, was straining her eyes into the darkness, and wondering with greater and greater insistence what kept her husband. Her mother-in-law had not returned. She almost wished she had, for the solitude and silence seemed unending. At last, unable to endure the suspense any longer, she drew her veil tightly, to avoid recognition, and stole like a shadow along the darkest side of the street to meet Gunesh. But he, also weary of waiting, returned from an unsuccessful pursuit of the doctor by another route. Thus no reply came to his whispered call to Veru, as he stepped over the threshold. What had happened? He repeated the call louder.

"Veru!--Mother! Is there no one in the house?"

His mother's voice answered him from behind, and he turned to her, relieved; for all its lightness, the little burden at his heart grew heavy in responsibility. Even in his mother's arms it seemed safer.

Two old women who had accompanied her, with the intention of making a last appeal to common sense, looked at the child critically.

"Truly, O mother of Gunesha," said one, "'tis the evil eye; but there is time yet to cast the devil out by fumigations."

"Without doubt," echoed the other. "I have seen children nearer death than this, snatched from the grave by wisdom such as thine."

Gunesh Chund's mother looked at him, her triumph dimmed and softened by appeal.

"Wilt kill the little thing by over-kindness?" she whispered. "See, chance hath given her to us. Veru, poor fool, is away.--Let us work the charm, Guneshwa. I worked it on thee when thou wast a sickly babe, and see how strong and tall thou art."

He looked from one to the other doubtfully. What was he, an ignorant man, to set his wishes against these wise mothers, when they assured him of success? He gave a sign of assent, and set himself towards authority should Veru come back ere the business was well over.

The old women turned to their task joyfully. The time was past, they cackled, for any but robust measures, and life in NihÂli's frail form must be made unendurable to the devil without delay. For this purpose, what more effectual than red pepper and turmeric? Swiftly, with muttered charms, and many a deft passing through of this thing seven times, and that seven times seven, the child was laid on a low, strong-seated stool, in full blaze of the fire-light, while the grandmother, bringing the drugs from her stores within, mixed them in approved manner. An earthenware saucer filled with smouldering charcoal served for brazier. Then, all being ready and placed beneath the stool, a discordant chant was raised, and the powder flung on the embers.

From the dense yellow smoke enveloping poor little NihÂli came a feeble, gasping cry.

"Mother!" pleaded the man, hiding his face.

"'Tis the devil cries," replied the stern old woman, flinging fresh drugs on the coals.

A fainter cry came, echoed in a shriek from the door, where Veru stood, paralyzed for an instant by rage and terror. The next, dashing the witches aside with furious blows, coughing and suffocating in the fumes, her empty, craving arms sought the child and found it--too late! A sigh, a struggle, and the demon, or angel of life, had fled forever.

Smarting and half blind with the foul smoke, Veru's eyes failed to see the tall figure half hidden in the corner; but her voice seemed to pierce him through and through.

"I gave her to Guneshwa! Where is he?"

Then, as the full extent of the result came home to her, shriek after shriek rent the air, and she fell into one of the violent hysterical fits so common among Indian women of all classes.

"The devil hath entered into her," said her mother-in-law, bitterly; so the turmeric and red pepper came in handy.

Gunesh Chund, torn by a vague remorse, and uncertain what to think, found his refuge in the dream-compeller. But while he dreamed under the stars, on the roof that rose like a watch-tower above the village, and Veru lay in the unconsciousness of exhaustion below, a strange, ghastly scene was enacted in the outer court-yard, where the old women flitted about with tiny oil lamps in their hands. Little NihÂli, dressed in her fine clothes, with bandy legs straightened and struggling arms at rest, lay stiff on the string stool, with each tiny palm clenched over a ball of raw sugar, and miniature cards of cotton-wool, such as women prepare for their spinning, between each finger. So armed with all female attractions, the sugar symbolizing sweetness to a lover, the cotton diligence as a wife, NihÂli was ready, like a true woman, to sacrifice herself unconditionally in order to bring sons to the hearth.

"Veru, of course, would not hear of this," said the stern grandmother to her cronies, "and Guneshwa is fairly bewitched by her obstinacy. Nevertheless, the opportunity shall not slip; for if the omens are bad, I must give him another wife without delay."

So, in the darkest of the night, before the jackal's last cry heralded the dawn, the three women slipped through the deserted streets. No fear was on their faces, no huddling together or whispering; straight in solemn order, as to a sacred duty, went the little procession, headed by the tall, gaunt grandmother, bearing the dead baby in her arms.

Past the still, shining pools of water girdling the village; beyond the thorn enclosures; through the fields of wheat, till the village common-land, a stretch of bare mud and low, sparse bushes, lay dim and desolate around them.

"'Tis the nick of time," said one of the cronies, pointing to a grey shadow slinking away from their steps; "now may the Great One send a good omen!"

In an open spot surrounded by bushes Gunesh Chund's mother paused and looked around.

"Here," she whispered, and the others nodded.

She stooped to lay the dead child on the ground, carefully placing it so that the feet were from the village; then raising herself to her full height, she stretched her right hand towards the horizon, as if pointing out a road, repeating in a wild chant echoed by those behind her:

"Thus we drive you forth, O daughter!
Come not back, but send a brother."