“And you only landed forty-eight hours ago! Surely you are not tired of it already. I thought all young ladies liked India. Mind where you are going! It is very dark here. Will you take hold of my arm?”
“No, thank you,” rather stiffly.
“Then my hand? You really had better, or you will come a most awful cropper, and trip over the sleepers.”
“Here is an extraordinary adventure!” said Honor to herself. “What would Jessie and Fairy say, if they could see me now, walking along in the dark through a wild desolate country, hand-in-hand with an absolutely strange young man, whose face I have never even seen?”
A short distance ahead were groups of chattering natives—women with red dresses and brass lotahs, which caught the light of their hand-lanterns (a lantern is to a native what an umbrella is to a Briton); turbaned, long-legged men, who carried bundles, lamps, and sticks. The line was bordered on either hand by thick hedges of greyish cactus; here and there glimmered a white flower; here and there an ancient bush showed bare distorted roots, like the ribs of some defunct animal. Beyond stretched a dim mysterious landscape, which looked weird and ghostly by the light of a few pale stars. The night was still and oppressively warm.
“You will be met at Allahabad, I suppose?” observed Honor’s unknown escort, after a considerable silence.
“Yes—by my aunt.”
“You must be looking forward to seeing her again?”
“Again! I have never seen her as yet.” She paused, and then continued, “We are three girls at home, and my aunt and uncle wished to have one of us on a visit, and I came.”
“Not very willingly, it would seem,” with a short laugh.