"Will you—I wonder?" murmured Mrs. Bourne looking at him meditatively. To herself, she said, "If he returns, and finds Barbie married to Lewis MacKenzie, he won't remain twenty-four hours!"
CHAPTER XXIX
Two or three times a week, Mrs. Bourne and her young friends mounted their ponies, and went for extensive excursions in the neighbourhood. Mallender rode a stout brown cobby animal from Bonagherry, known as "The Duffer," the lady of Kartairi, a well-bred chestnut who had played polo, and Barbie, a wiry flea-bitten grey, whose propensity for thieving, and agility in climbing, had earned for her the name of "The Cat." Kartairi stood amid what might be termed a sea of coffee bushes, extending for many acres; at first, the little party were obliged to ride along the narrow coolie tracks in Indian file; they had also to pass through that deplorable spectacle, an abandoned estate. Here the land was overrun with a climbing prickly plant, the desolate bungalow was dismantled, and the pulping-house a ruin—all this, to the credit of the planter's deadly enemy the "Borer" Worm.
Emerging at last from among lucent green bushes, the riders came by degrees upon grassy uplands, and the great silent spaces, which are bounded by the Western Ghauts. Here were glades, downs, and clumps of trees recalling English parks; and in the cool clear air, the little party enjoyed many a delightful and invigorating gallop.
Once the riders made their way into another country, and a warm and steamy climate; descending by break-neck paths, and wet sedgy glades, dropping cautiously from terrace to terrace into the rich forest lands above Canara, and avoiding with care "the special reserve"—a peculiar feature of the West; sacred groves dedicated to the ancestral gods, into which the foot of shikari, woodman or herdsman may not penetrate. The ancestral gods are supposed to hunt in these regions, and woe betide the luckless mortal who encounters them! Owing to the rainfall, the extraordinarily luxuriant growth in this part of the world must be seen to be realised. Bamboos of enormous size, great teak trees, with their glossy leaves, gigantic plantains, sandal wood, and the sago palm, flourish here in wildest profusion. As for flowers, the riders found themselves in a fairy garden, amid a wealth of blooms and perfumes, undreamt of in colder climes; their ponies' hoofs ruthlessly trampled on lilies, begonias, orchids, and maiden hair, and pressing along the narrow game tracks, thrust themselves between masses of convolvuli, and sweet flowering shrubs. In the warm scented atmosphere the perfume of the "Niddo" was almost overpowering.
From several directions the most promising vistas were unapproachable, owing to the density of the thorny undergrowth, and tangled ropes of the flame-coloured "Elephant Creeper," that so to speak held the trees of the forest in a bondage of flowers.
"The old Portuguese were well acquainted with this part of the world," remarked Mrs. Bourne, as she halted to feast her eyes on a riot of contrasting colours.
"No wonder they called it 'The Gorgeous East.'"
"No wonder, indeed!" assented Mallender.