"It shall be part payment of the acknowledged claim," he said; "let the Courts decide on the rest."
"After the harvest?"
"Ay, after the harvest; in consideration of the jewels."
Anunt Râm kept his word, and the fields were shorn of their crop ere the summons to attend the District Court was brought to the old peasant.
"By the Great Spirit who judges all it is a lie!" That was all he could say as the long, carefully-woven tissue of fraud and cunning blinded even the eyes of a justice biassed in his favour. The records of our Indian law-courts teem with such cases--cases where even equity can do nothing against the evidence of pen and paper. No need to detail the strands which formed the net. The long array of seals had borne fruit at last, fiftyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold--a goodly harvest for the usurer.
"Look not so glum, friend," smiled Anunt Râm, as they pushed old Jaimul from the Court at last, dazed, but still vehemently protesting. "Thou and Jodha thy son shall till the land as ever, seeing thou art skilled in such work, but there shall be no idlers; and the land, mark you, is mine, not thine."
A sudden gleam of furious hate sprang to the strong old face, but died away as quickly as it came.
"Thou liest," said Jaimul; "I will appeal. The land is mine. It hath been mine and my fathers' under the king's pleasure since time began. Kings, ay, and queens, for that matter, are not fools, to give good land to the bunniah's belly. Can a bunniah plough?"
Yet as he sat all day about the court-house steps awaiting some legal detail or other, doubt even of his own incredulity came over him. He had often heard of similar misfortunes to his fellows, but somehow the possibility of such evil appearing in his own life had never entered his brain. And what would Kishnu say--after all these years, these long years of content?
The moon gathering light as the sun set shone full on the road, as the old man, with downcast head, made his way across the level plain to the mud hovel which had been a true home to him and his for centuries. His empty hands hung at his sides, and the fingers twitched nervously as if seeking something. On either side the bare stubble, stretching away from the track which led deviously to the scarce discernible hamlets here and there. Not a soul in sight, but every now and again a glimmer of light showing where some one was watching the heaps of new threshed grain upon the threshing-floors.