Whilst she was speaking, Biroo had approached the fawn with a handful of grass.
"Is this the little one they say ye found on the Bore bridge, sahib?" inquired the young Padhani.
Ram Deen nodded affirmatively.
"Poor child!" she exclaimed, and, moved by a sudden impulse of pity, she knelt beside Biroo, and smoothing the hair from his face she put a marigold behind his ear.
Next day, after he had delivered the mail, Ram Deen, making a bundle of his best clothes, started off into the jungle. When he was out of sight of the village, he donned a snowy tunic and a scarlet turban, and encased his feet in a pair of red, hide-sewn shoes. When Tara, on her way to the bazaar with a load of firewood, met him soon after, she thought she had never seen any one so bravely attired, and stepped off the path to make room for him to pass.
"Toba, toba!" he exclaimed; "it maketh my head ache to see the load thou bearest. Gunga Ram will, doubtless, give thee not less than eight annas for the firewood."
"Nay, Coach-wan sahib, Gunga Ram is just, and besides giving me the market price,—two annas,—he often bestoweth on me a handful of sweetmeats."
"Thou shalt sell no more wood to Gunga Ram. He is base, and his father is a dog. Set thy load at my door; here is the price thereof," and Ram Deen laid an eight-anna piece in her palm. Before she could recover from her astonishment he said, "The fawn Ganda, is her hurt healed?"
"It is well with her. And what of Biroo, sahib?"
"He is a budmash, Tara, and I repent me of befriending him."