CHAPTER IV.
That day Girunda and Gyannia walked five miles, resting in a nullah, under tufts of high grass, in the heat of the sun from nine till six—during which time the fierce hot winds roared over the land, and swept the roasted leaves up and down the roads, and shook the branches of the cork trees. How hot it was—every living thing seemed to have secured some shelter, save these forlorn children. The air was like a blast from a furnace, the very stones were scorching to the touch, and in the shallows, where a great river had rushed in the rains, there were now but a few shrunken pools in a stony bed; in these pools wallowed blue buffaloes (their hideous noses scarcely above water), enjoying a sort of tepid relief.
That night the travellers halted in a village; a gwali’s (cowherd’s) wife was surprised to see an exhausted-looking boy carrying on his back a little girl, the little girl in her turn carrying a cat. She invited them in, and gave them milk, and asked from whence they came.
“Paroor,” replied Girunda.
“Paroor? Lo! it is six koss away. Do thy people know?” She eyed him with suspicion.
“Yea; our uncle hath turned us out to beg.”
“And where art thou going?”
“To Shahjhanpur, where our father dwells.”
“Shahjhanpur!” with a scream; “why, it is nigh thirty koss, and thou canst not walk there.”
“There is no other means.”
“Hast thou any money?”
Girunda untied a rag, and proudly displayed his precious four-anna bit. He had never possessed such a sum in his life.
“It may maintain thee for two or three days,” said the woman dubiously.
“What work is thy father doing in Shahjhanpur?”
“Some one said he was making matting,” rejoined the boy, simply. “He is in jail.”
“In jail! Oh, ye fathers!”
“Yea; he went three months ago.”
“And what hath he done?—murder—robbery?”
“He hath done naught. They just took him.”
“But surely he must have robbed or plundered?”
“Nay; he was always very poor. He had nothing to leave us but a sickle and this cat; but old Turroo Sing had all his money stolen.”
“I see. And now it is buried somewhere,” she added significantly. “How long will thy father be in jail?”
“Two years.”
“A great time! Well, thou art weary, and must need rest. Lie here on this mat, and to-morrow I will give thee food to take thee on for a day or two—money I have none—and God will do the rest.”
The next morning the children fared well. That good Samaritan, the gwali’s wife, secured them seats in a passing bullock-hackery, and thus they accomplished a considerable distance.
The following day they met no friends, and the heat was frightful—the air like a flame. Nevertheless, Girunda tottered doggedly forward, with his sister on his back, for five miles, with long, long rests; and at sunset they were nearing a large native town—at any rate, it seemed large to them. They were sent to the serai—a resting-place for native wayfarers. There was a great entrance gate leading into a wide enclosed space, with plenty of accommodation for camels, ekkas, and horses, and little niches, or rooms, all around, for the travellers. This was indeed a new life to Girunda—his sister was asleep. He went and watched the hairy Punjaubi dealers watering and feeding their ponies; the bearded camel-men giving fodder to their screaming, bubbling, discontented animals; the “purda nashins,” women, hidden behind a kind of screen in a corner, from whence came much shrill laughing and chattering. Tired as he was, he was still more curious, and crept forward and tried to peep, but was rewarded with a stinging blow and a volume of abuse from a hideous old hag. “They were all ugly,” so he assured a hawker, who laughed at his discomfiture.
This serai, with its crowds of travellers, and groups of animals, and imposing entrance, was truly a most novel and wonderful scene to this ignorant village lad.
A woman, woman-like, once more took pity on the party—the queer little group of a boy and a girl and a cat, with no one belonging to them, and not even possessing a bundle of clothes. In reply to their petition, “O mother, will you help us?” she gave them a ride on her jingling ekka for about eight miles. Girunda and Gyannia had never been in (to them) such a splendid equipage before, and were extremely happy as the wiry chesnut animal between the shafts, who tasted naught but bad grass or roadside nibblings, kept up a steady canter mile after mile. But, alas! the ekka’s owner was going in a different direction from theirs, and at a certain bridge she set them down, and took leave of them, turning away into a “cutcha” track.
They were now in a different country, where the road ran quite straight between lines of neem trees, and was bounded with burnt-up, rusty grass. The landscape was desolate; there were no villages peeping out of the clumps of trees, no houses by the roadside: but these are always rare in India.
They halted at sundown, and crept under the arches of a bridge over a dry watercourse, and ate raw rice and drank water. It was plain that they must pass the night where they were, and as they were very tired, they were not long in falling asleep. Gyannia, infant-like, slept soundly till dawn, but not so her brother. At midnight he was awoke by a cold, damp nose being poked into his face; he started up trembling, and a few minutes later he heard his visitor’s melancholy cry—it was only a prowling jackal. As he sat and stared into the grey light, his sharpened ears heard another sound that made his heart beat very fast—the “haunk—haunk” of a hyena. The cat, too, sat up and listened. If it came their way, he had no weapon; and stories of children devoured by hyenas were a common topic among the crones of Paroor village. He had several times seen a hyena skulking round, when he was driving home the cow—a hideous, high-shouldered, shuffling brute; but then his father had been near, and he was not afraid. Now, alas! his father was miles away, and he was almost sick with terror. The cry came nearer and nearer—oh, fearfully near—now it was directly overhead! What intense relief! the brute was on the high-road right above them; yes, and the “haunk—haunk” was dying gradually away in the distance; but Girunda slept no more that night. Supposing it should come back? The cat, too, appeared to have anxieties; she did not curl up, but sat bolt erect beside him. She was a queer animal, attached to people and not to a place, though the first day she had followed them in a devious and uncertain manner, uttering low mews of expostulation, and even sitting down in the middle of the road, and thus remonstrating from afar, till they were almost out of sight, but subsequently joining them like a whirlwind, with a long white tail. Lately she had been carried, and had had “lifts” in the bullock-cart and ekka; so the cat was much the freshest of the party, and seemed to have become reconciled to the journey, though she evidently did not approve of sleeping out at night in the neighbourhood of hyenas.
It was the end of June, just before the rains broke; the sky was like molten brass, the earth like stone. Who would travel in such a time?—who but two homeless unfortunates, who must press forward or else lie down and perish! Girunda staggered along, carrying his sister, at the rate of three koss a day. The four annas were long exhausted, and they now openly begged their bread! Some gave them a few handsful of rice,—which they ate raw—some a few cowries, which they spent at the little bunnia shops; they could barely keep body and soul together! Yes, they were like the mendicants that had come to their own door in the good times Girunda remembered, when his mother was alive—and the cow.
His mother—he could recollect her well. She had pretty white teeth, and she laughed often; but one day she came back from the fields between two women. She was weeping, and so were they, and they sent him across the river to play; and when he returned, a boy in the village ran shouting to meet him, and cried, “Thy mother is dead; a snake bit her.”
Sometimes Girunda thought he would die too; he was so hot, and so tired, and his feet were so sore. If only he could reach his father first! But how long the miles had become! How he strained his eyes to catch sight of the next milestone! and what an enormous time it seemed before it came into view! The road never varied—never turned to the right hand or the left; sometimes, as he toiled on, his poor tired brain imagined that it had taken the form of a great grey serpent, and was coming towards him to swallow him up. They were now within five miles of Shahjhanpur city—would he ever reach it? There were fine trees lining the route; there were plenty of ekkas and ponies; there was a loud-puffing fire-devil going yonder over a bridge (he had heard of it), with a lot of black boxes behind it; and still he was three miles from Shahjhanpur—now two. Oh, he could never arrive there—never!