"Maro." Oliver knew that word—"Kill it." The old shikaree was muttering the same. But Oliver only grasped his arm the tighter. "Should we be harder-hearted than a wolf?" he urged. "What are we, if we reward the generosity that spared the victim in her very teeth, with the knife?"
Tara Ghur looked at him in astonishment. "But the mighty lords that are coming will make it eat their bullets," he answered under his breath.
Oliver knew he was arguing with a man who bent the knee to hideous idols without number. Yet he was a man, and deep down in his heart the law of God was written, "Do as you would be done by"—a law that is never quite obliterated in any human breast, however persistently disobeyed. Although of another race, Tara had learned something of the Hindu tenderness for animal life, and he listened when Oliver still went on: "You have caught the wolf so cleverly, Tara. If there is not another hunter in all the hills that could do it, I am sure that you can get the child away without killing the wolf, if you will only try. I want it for Rattam," he added. The last argument was all-prevailing. The knife went back into the old man's belt. They looked around. Their first endeavour was to reassure the unfortunate woman.
She was crossing to Nataban, and had lost her way in the jungle, where she had been wandering about all night. Her feet slipped on the bird-lime, and she fell, as the wolf had fallen, into the hunter's trap, where she was forced to remain huddled up in her blanket, expecting every moment the brute would turn and devour her. But deliverance had come with the morning. Her gratitude knew no bounds. Oliver scrambled out of the pit, and gave her a hand from above, while Tara lifted her up on his shoulder; and so between them they dragged her back to the daylight, if daylight it might be called.
The dirty blanket was dropped in the pit, and the Thibetan woman stood before them in her necklaces and rags. Oliver had not forgotten little Kathleen and the mountain milkmaid. Could those three strings of beads belong to any one else? But he dared not stay to question. He left her seated and trembling on the root of a tree, and leaped down into the pit again. The wolf was blinded by the birdlime, but she had heard their voices. Like all wolves when caught in a pit, she was completely cowed. Instead of offering the least resistance, she stretched herself at the bottom of the pit, as if she were dead, with her fore paws over her nursling, hiding him all she could.
The hunter, who knew what wolves will do under such circumstances, guessed it was only pretence. She could not get out of the pit herself; and he had known wolves artful enough to let him drag them out, without showing the slightest sign of life, and when he had left them lying on the ground, believing they were dead, they would suddenly start up and run away.
Tara Ghur explained this to Oliver as well as he could, assuring him in this state she would submit to be handled. It was clear she had not attempted to touch the woman. Under any other circumstances she would have torn her to pieces.
The boy's heart gave a great leap of joy. He saw a baby's foot twitching between the outstretched paws. Old Tara saw it too. He took from the bosom of his loose brown vest, which is the Hindu's pocket, a coil of rope, and was tying a slip noose at one end, when Oliver guessed his purpose. In another moment the noose would have been round the gray wolf's throat. Oliver knew the old man was only doing his duty to those who had employed him to find the child and destroy the wolf, but he could not bear to see him kill the noble-hearted creature with the child in her paws—the child she had spared and cherished and guarded from unimaginable perils all those months! "We must, we ought to spare her in our turn," he cried, pushing back the noose as far as her jaw. "We will muzzle her; that's enough."
But the collar to fix the muzzle was wanting. Oliver was wearing knickerbockers and a loose brown blouse, belted round his waist. He tore off his belt and slipped the buckle down: there was the collar they wanted. Whilst Tara still held the ends of the rope, securing the wolf's mouth, Oliver slipped his belt under her chin, and buckled it firmly at the back of her neck. Then they drew the two ends of the rope over her forehead and knotted them to the belt, and the wolf was securely muzzled. With the end of the rope which he still held Tara pulled her backwards, and Oliver snatched up the child, all sticky with the bird-lime, and covered with the dust and dirt in which it had been rolled; but its limbs were warm and strong, for it resisted his attempts to hold it. He was by far the stronger of the two, but the struggle might rouse the wolf to animation. Oliver slipped two fingers into his pocket, which he was in the habit of filling from the Rana's jars, and pushed a bit of the beautiful sweetmeats with which they were filled into the tiny mouth. The little creature, so long a stranger to the taste of sugar, sucked its lips with pleasure. It must have been hungry. He fed it with all he had, until Tara came and took it from him to carry it out of the pit. Oliver watched him scramble to the top with the child in his arms, but he did not follow when he saw them safely on the bank. There was something else he wanted to do. He was not going to leave the wolf down there, with a broken leg, to perish slowly from hunger and thirst: that would be cruelty indeed. He stood a while considering the broken limb.
"Sahib! sahib!" called the hunter. Oliver's plan was made; so he grasped the dusky hand which was stretched out to him, and clambered up.