“The mystery will soon be cleared up,” observed Mr. Hartley, “for we have come in sight of the bungalow at last.”
The reader will find the solution of the mystery in the following chapter.
CHAPTER XV
A STRUGGLE.
When Alicia went into the fort in her quest after the black locket, Robin, keeping the doli in sight, removed to a place at a short distance where he would be less liable to observation. There, under a peepul tree was a well to supply the inmates of the fort with water, and this water, as is very commonly the case in India, was drawn up by means of a Persian wheel. This contrivance, which is never seen in England, is familiar to dwellers in the East. Two oxen, yoked to a shaft which is attached to a large wheel, by going round and round the well make the wheel revolve. Its circumference is completely encircled with a garland of small earthen pots. As the big wheel turns round, its lower half in the well, such of the pots as are lowest dip under the water, and thus necessarily become filled. The revolution of the wheel raises these full vessels higher and higher, till each in turn reaches a point where the turn of the circle empties out all the water contained in the pot into a wooden trough. By the water flowing through this channel, a tiny streamlet is fed to irrigate the fields or supply the personal wants of the people. To Robin this manner of raising water by a Persian wheel was nothing new, but as he now stood waiting he had plenty of time to watch the simple contrivance, and the revolving wheel, with its filling and emptying jars, formed itself into a parable in his mind.
“These oxen go round and round on a wearisome course of work, perhaps themselves suffering from thirst whilst raising water for others. They are like our home societies, our secretaries and committees, labouring in dear old England to turn the mission wheel. All these little jars are emblems of the missionaries themselves; that one broken at the rim I’ll take as a type of myself. Here you go down, down, little jar—there’s a need of humility; keep aloft, and not a drop of water can reach you. You must descend before you can mount. There! my jar has disappeared in the well—it is, as it were, lost in its work; this is the filling time for the little vessel. There! I see it again, dripping and glistening and rising! Up it goes to empty itself of its treasure, to send fertility into the fields, and comfort into the home, to make the dry furrows laugh with a future harvest. The jar is but a poor, mean thing of clay, yet it has its use in the world,—emblem of weak men and weaker women, of whom God deigns to make use to carry to the thirsty heathen that water of life—the knowledge of a Saviour.”
Robin, who of late had not only thought a good deal, but written a good deal—his pen taking, as he said to himself, the place of a wife—was so full of his little allegory, which he thought that he might turn into a poem, that he did not take notice of the approach of a party of men, till one of them suddenly addressed him. Turning his eyes from the Persian wheel, Robin recognized in the handsomely-attired native near him Thákar Dás, the chief who ruled in the fort. The Hindu did not give the Englishman the salám which courtesy demands, and there was something of insolence in the chief’s tone and manner as he abruptly said, “Where is Kripá Dé?”
“Why do you ask me?” said Robin, perplexed by the sudden question.
“Because you are certain to know. You and your brother have misguided the lad—you have bewitched him; have you baptized him too?”
“No,” was the curt reply.