"The heat has done it," he exclaimed, as he heard the father's piteous tale. "The streams are drying up among the hills, and the wild beasts are driven to the cultured plains to seek for water. I heard a tiger grunting all night in the river; many may be lingering in the thicket for their mid-day sleep. Poor fellow! you'll see your baby no more."
The kind-hearted major turned his head away, he could not look the distracted father in the face, as he added, "Be a man, Desborough. Thank God for this fresh breeze; it will save your other child—think of that."
But his syce pressed forward, with a low salaam, to the unhappy sahib, to assure him he heard the cry of a child from the grass by the river, pointing as he spoke to a waving forest of graceful feathery blades, full twenty feet high.
"Cries of monkeys!" interrupted his master angrily, provoked to see his poor friend tantalized with hopes which seemed to him so utterly delusive.
He reined in his horse by his side, and tried to reason with him on the probable fate of his child. They passed a group of sleepy vultures, perched upon a boulder stone. If the poor baby had been dropped living amidst the fields, how could it escape destruction? Even Mr. Desborough was afraid to place much trust in the syce's words, with the ever-increasing chattering of monkeys and screaming of birds. He looked at the wide plains around him, and at the great herds of graceful, delicate-limbed, smoke-coloured cattle, which were now being slowly driven out to pasture. For the brief tropical twilight was over, and day had fairly begun. The air was full of cries. The voices of the night had but given place to the myriad voices of the day. Was it possible for any one to distinguish between them? He heard, or seemed as if he heard, the shriek of his child mingling with every sound, and he knew it was not real. He heard it amidst the bellow of the fierce, ungainly-looking buffaloes, who were marching forth in troops from many a native village, followed by flocks of goats and bleating sheep.
With a hope which Mr. Desborough said hoarsely "was no hope," he rallied his men to beat the huge thicket of grass, and drive out any living thing lurking within it. Afraid of hurling stones at a venture into such a tangled mass, the coolies armed themselves with long sticks, which they struck with a sharp, ringing sound on the bark of the nearest trees. A scampering was heard. The grass swayed hither and thither. There was a cry.
"Nothing but the scream of a frightened pig," persisted the major. "It is the very spot for a wild boar's lair."
He reined in his horse, and stationed himself where he could command a good view of the thicket. Mr. Desborough had chosen his post already, on the opposite side, and was watching as if he were all eye, all ear. Old Gobur had gone round to the back of the thicket. Nothing could escape them rushing from it.
"Not too near," shouted the major to his friend. "Have a care for your own life! No one knows yet what it is we have dislodged."
As they watched the heaving grass, another cry arose in the distance, prolonged and hideous. But the friends knew well what it meant. A party of travellers were approaching, and their tired bearers were calling out for a relay of men from the village to come and take their places.