They tied the old mare to a tree, while, hand tight clasped in hand, just as they had seen it done a hundred times, they circumambulated the sacred fire.
"That's better," sighed Nâno. "Now, I believe, we really are married."
"Tchu!" cried Pertâbi in superior wisdom, "I can tell you heaps and heaps of things. Our dolls do them when we've time; we are always marrying our dolls in the city. But we can ride a bit further first, and when we get tired of Pinky-nose we can just get down and be married another way. That'll rest us."
So through the lengthening shadows, they rode on and got married, rode on, and got married, until Pertâbi's braided head began to nod against Nânuk's back, and she said sleepily:
"We'll keep the gur-ror (sugar-throwing) till tomorrow, Nâno; that'll be fun."
But when, in the deep dusk, the pink-nosed mare drew up of her own accord at the gate of the wide village yard, and drowsy Nânuk just remembered enough of past events to lift his bride across the threshold, and murmur with an awful qualm, "This is my wife," Pertâbi woke up suddenly to plant her little red-trousered legs firmly on the ground, and say, with a nod:
"Yes! and we've been married every way we could think of, haven't we, Nâno? except the sugar-throwing, because we hadn't any; but--we'll--have--plenty--now; won't we, Nâno?" The pauses being filled up by yawns.
It was midnight before Suchêt Singh and Dhyân, forgetful of their enmity in over-mastering anxiety, arrived on the scene. The culprits were then fast asleep, and the deep-chested country-woman, having recovered the shock, was beginning to find a difficulty in telling the tale without smiles. A difficulty which, by degrees, extended itself to her hearers.
"Ho! ho! ho!" exploded Suchêt suddenly; "and so they didn't even forget the forehead mark. I'll be bound that was Nânuk--the rogue."
"Ho! ho! ho!" echoed the armourer; "as like as not it was Pertâb. The sharpest little marionette."