The jail official was much perplexed—here was a most unusual case: two children clamouring for admittance into an establishment which every one else was averse to entering.
What was he to do with them? Were they to be left at the gates, to be sent back to Paroor? One thing was positively certain—they could not be received inside the jail.
A great multitude had now gathered to behold the convict’s boy, who had walked seventy miles with his sister on his back. It takes but little at any time to attract an Indian audience. The crowd was about to be dispersed by the police, when the jail superintendent drove up in his brougham for his morning inspection, and alighted, and asked in amazement the reason of the tumult.
In five minutes he was in possession of all the facts—the thread of the story—much delayed by constant exclamations and additions from excited women in the throng.
“So these are thy children?” said the superintendent to Chūnnee.
“Yes, my lord; and it was for the sake of these that I tried to commit that theft.”
“And thy brother hath turned them out?”
“So they say; and it was like him.”
“Why hath he done so?”
“How can I tell thee, protector of the poor, save that he is a bad man? His name of Zālim Sing fits him but too well; truly he is a tyrannical lion. If the bountiful sirkar would only feed my children!”