"Malakoom, salaam!" returned the Thanadar. "So thou hast brought in the Queen's mail safely, my Rustum?"
"Hasteen and I," began the little fellow, putting a caressing hand on the head of the great dog, who lay beside him winking at the fire, "Hasteen and I fear nought that moveth in the jungle, save only the men of Nyagong;—and then, too, there was Ram Deen."
This was said so seriously that the men sitting round the fire laughed at the little man's gravity; and Ram Deen smiled as he spread an armful of dry grass on the ground, into which he tucked the little fellow, and wrapped him up in his blanket. Hasteen settled himself beside Biroo, and they soon became oblivious of the circle round the fire.
"How likest thou the little jungle waif, Ram Deen?" inquired the Thanadar.
"Thanadar ji, he is to me as mine own son, Buldeo, come back to life; and he knoweth not fear. As we drove through the jungle yesterday and to-night he turned his face towards Nyagong and cursed that village, and sware that he would burn it to the ground when he had a beard; and 'tis like as not that he will do so when he is a man grown."
"Durga aid him in his attempt!" said fat Gunga Ram, the sweetmeat vender; "that village hath always bred rogues and budmashes, before and since Cheeta Dutt, the son of the last Jemadar (head man of the village), committed a deed of hell in the jungle thereby."
The silence of those who sat round the fire was a mute request to Gunga Ram to tell the story thus prefaced.
"Brothers," he began, "'twas in the second year after the great mutiny that a young Englishman came into the Terai to look after the sâl trees, which always seemed a foolishness to me till I learned that sâl timber is good for the building of the ships that cross the Black Water.
"And he had but little to do, save to shoot black partridge and spotted deer and watch the Padhani women crossing the ford in front of his camp; that was the evil of it.
"In those days I was but a span round the waist, and the best shikari (hunter) and tracker in these parts; and Bonner Sahib—that was his name—hired me to show him where game was to be found. But he soon tired of shikar (sport), and fell to playing the songs of the Padhani women on his cithar, the like of which I never heard before.