"Yea, brothers," said the hostler, at whom Ram Deen looked for confirmation of this part of his story, "I had scarce time to leap to one side, as the mail-cart sped past me whilst I waited on the bridge."
More he would have said,—for he had never before enjoyed the privilege of speech at the Thanadar's fire, and the occasion was epochal,—but he saw in Ram Deen's face that which made him whine and say, "But I am a poor man, and know nothing, and my sight is dim by reason of sitting overmuch by grass fires,—only Ram Deen, Bahadoor, could not stay the horses, though he cursed their female relatives for many generations, and——"
"So, Thanadar ji," interrupted Ram Deen, "as soon as I could restrain the horses I turned them back, and, after picking up the hostler (who, because he is more silent, is wiser than most poor men who are ever talking of what they know not), I drove to the huldoo tree where hung Bijoo as dead as you saw him but now."
Then, after a pause, he said, "Brothers, let it be told in the Terai that Bijoo came back as befitted an honorable man."
CHAPTER IX
The Rope that Hanged Bijoo
"Thy man-child is very beautiful, my lord," said Tara.
Ram Deen was sitting outside of his hut on a charpoi, whilst Tara rubbed their month-old babe with "bitter oil" in the forenoon sun.
The little brown manikin, without a stitch on him to conceal God's handiwork, sprawled on his stomach across his mother's knees, making inarticulate noises, and wriggling after the manner of infants when it is well with them, for the sun was pleasantly warm, and his mother's rubbing appealed to his budding sensations.