"Shoot booraba, shoot baby!" cried out another of his servants, who had just overtaken him. The poor fellow was trembling like a leaf.—-"Come to the beebee, Kathleen!" he entreated. "Come quickly!"
The truth flashed upon the father's mind—the wolf had already entered his nursery. He rushed to his wife's tent. His servants stopped him.
"The mem-sahib" (for so they called their mistress)—"the mem-sahib knows nothing yet. Spare her till we are sure."
One stride, and Mr. Desborough was over the veranda railing, parting the chintz curtains of the nursery purdah. The ayah threw herself at his feet, and began to tear her hair.
Now Mr. Desborough knew very well that his black servants exaggerated dreadfully. Their excited imaginations magnified everything. It is the way in the East, and a bad way it is. Having had two or three false alarms, he never believed more than half they told him. Could he believe them now? "Where is Kathleen?" he demanded sternly.
In another minute Kathleen's face was buried on his shoulder, as she sobbed out her piteous story. "A dog, papa—a huge, horrid, lean, lank dog—rushed out of the bathroom, and ran away with Carl."
CHAPTER II.
IN PURSUIT.
It was all too true. The punkah coolie was fanning an empty cot—the child was gone.
With Kathleen fainting in her lap, even the ayah had not missed poor Carl in the moment of her return. It was but a moment ere the alarm was raised, yet the wolf had carried off her prey.