The jungle was hardly awake when I struck into the path that skirted the Bore Nuddee. Presently, a green parrot "kr-r-r-d" tentatively, as a faint flush appeared in the cloudless east. A wild boar jumped a fence a few hundred yards ahead of me, followed by the sounder, of which he was chief, as they left the fields they had been marauding during the night. A nilghai, with his wicked-looking horns, soon followed, and lumbered noiselessly away. These were the thieves of the Terai, and they were, naturally, hurrying to their coverts before the coming day should be upon them.
Suddenly, the dewy silence was broken by the invocation of a black partridge,—the muezzin of the jungle. "Sobhan theri koodruth!" How solemnly, and with what splendor of utterance and pause this voice of the Terai announces the miracle of the morning! The cry was taken up and passed on with a significance that dwarfed the passing of the fiery torch as told by Scott in "The Lady of the Lake." And immediately thereafter the jungle was singing its many-voiced matin, not the least "notable note" of which was the challenge of the jungle-cock, who is a native of the Terai, and whose vigorous voice is not raucous with the civilized laryngeal affections of the "tame villatic fowl."
And then, in the awakening of the forest, there came—Italian opera! A well-poised soprano voice silenced the jungle choir by a brilliantly executed chromatic scale, as though the singer were trying her voice. Finding it flexible enough for her purpose, she launched into the difficult—and abominable—aria, "Di tale amore che dirsi" in "Il Trovatore." She suddenly stopped, as though she were ashamed of the rubbish she sang; and, after a pause of half a minute, my soul was stirred by the air of Beethoven's immortal "Ich Liebe Dich," sung to the following words, which were beautifully enunciated:
I love thee, dear! All words would fail
To tell the true and tender theme;
Such ardent thoughts, and passion pale,
And humble suit, I fondly deem,
Would need a poet's rapturous mind.
Oh! if fit words could but be bought,
If Love's own speech I could but find,
I'd sell my soul to express my thought,
So you should in Love's toils be caught!
Oh! then a kindlier sun would shine,
The vermeiled flowers would look more fair,
The common world would seem divine,
And daily things appear most rare;
My soul, a soaring lark, would rise
To greet the morning of thy love
So sweetly dawning in thine eyes,
And in thy smiles, which should approve.
The tender charm of the sweet old song—now utterly neglected for more brazen utterances, and which only Beethoven could have written—was thoroughly appreciated by the singer.
Wishing to see her without myself being discovered, and hoping to hear her sing again, I "stalked" her—and, behold, she was a Padhani! I couldn't be mistaken, for she was singing David's "O ma maitresse," as I watched her from behind the bole of a great huldoo tree.
A little boy, about three years in age, played beside her as she sat on a fallen tree trunk and took part in the matin of the Terai. There was a noble breadth between her eyes that reminded one of the Sistine Madonna, and an air of repose about her figure which was set off by her simple garments.
She was, without doubt, Chambeli, the Padhani protégé of the Fishers, whose flight from her husband, the Rev. John Trusler, immediately after her return to the Terai, had been the sensation of the season at Naini Tal a few years ago.
Snapping a dry twig with my foot to attract her attention, I stepped into the open and approached her. Her first impulse was to flee, but she quickly regained her composure and awaited me, standing, her eyes meeting mine without the least embarrassment.