Kathleen, too, was wakened by the yelling of the jackals. She heard her father's step in the veranda, and listened to the sound of his gun as if it were a waking dream.
A voracious mosquito, which had crept inside the net curtains which enveloped her little bed, stung her cheek. Up started Kathleen, and called to the ayah, or native nurse, who slept on a mat by Carlyon's cot. Yes, there was something the matter; she was sure of it now. A small dusky hand put back the thin curtains; a gentle, smiling black face peeped at her; and cold water was sprinkled over the flushed forehead and burning pillow, until Kathleen felt refreshed. Her winged tormentor was caught and killed, and the ayah would have left her; but no. Kathleen was broad awake now. She was thinking about her father. Something was the matter. Racy was worse. She begged her ayah to go and see.
Carl was safe in his cot on the other side of the room, forgetting his baby troubles in happy slumber. So the ayah, who fully shared her little mistress's anxiety, ventured outside the curtained screen, or purdah, as they called it, which was drawn half across the open doorway. The room was large and lofty. It was at the corner of the house, with doors opening into the veranda on two sides. This helped to keep it bearable in a usual way, with the help of a great white calico fan fixed to the ceiling. This was called the punkah. Two of the native servants were kept in the veranda all night to work it by turns. They were the punkah coolies. One of them was fast asleep on his mat, and the other was nodding as he lazily pulled the rope which moved the fan. They assured the ayah all was right. No one was afraid of the jackals. They seldom hurt any one unless they were interfered with.
Whilst she was speaking, Kathleen grew impatient, and, persuaded that Racy was worse, she threw aside the thin sheet, her only covering, and ran to the other door. She was not tall enough to look over the purdah, and slipped softly into the bathroom adjoining. All the doors had been set wide open, so she made no noise to waken her little brother. There was no glass in the window of the bathroom. It was latticed, but it too was wide open, and the blind was down. These blinds, or tatties, are made of grass, and are kept damp to cool the air passing through them.
The troubled child managed to unfasten it and push it just a little aside. There was the tent gleaming white beneath the spreading trees. She could hear her mother singing some soothing lullaby. The two tall carriage-horses were cropping the tender buds from the hedge of roses which divided the garden from their paddock. She could see the gleam of the lilied pool beneath the farthest trees, with the fire-flies dancing round its banks like an ever-moving illumination. She heard the cries of the tiger and the deep bellow of the vanquished buffalo, and ran back to her bed in a fright, leaving the blind awry.
They were safe from the tiger; for a tiger always turns away from a fence, and Mr. Desborough's grounds were surrounded by a high bank, with a low stone wall on the top, shutting in garden, paddock, and stable-yard, with only one gate for the carriage, and that was locked. How had the wolf got in—that grim, gaunt creature, which still sat washing its torn shoulder behind the rhododendron unseen by any one? It had had a round with the buffalo before the tiger came out for his midnight stroll, and got that ugly scratch from her antagonist's horn.
So the wolf left the buffalo to the tiger, and plunged into the stream which fed the pool. The water was low, and the wolf was wary. The dive was pleasant. A scramble up the opposite bank landed her in Mr. Desborough's garden. Kathleen's peep-hole did not escape the wolf's observation. She saw the child's white face, and thought of her half-grown cubs. She dashed through the window, under the loosened blind, leaped clear over the row of tall earthenware water-jars which stood before it, and followed the child into the sleeping-room. Her unerring scent guided her to the cot where Carl lay tossing. He had thrown off the thin covering, and was fighting away the mosquito-net which enveloped his cot. She seized the child in her teeth, and was over the purdah with a bound.
Kathleen's wild shriek of terror called back the ayah.
The first fault gray of the summer twilight entered with her, and rested on Kathleen's long fair hair, but the empty bed in the other corner was still in shadow.
"Carl! Carl!" gasped Kathleen, and fainted in her nurse's arms.