I had to find lodging somewhere; for, although the weather was warm, Hindu thieves were numerous. As I crossed the railway tracks I recalled the fine “hotel” we had occupied in Puri. The next moment I slid down the bank into the broad railroad yards. Head-lights of puffing switch engines sent streaks of bright light through the blackness of the night. I wandered here and there, looking for an empty car. There were freight cars without number, an endless forest of them; but they were all closed or loaded with goods. Passenger cars there were none. I struck off boldly across the tracks toward the lighted station. Coming into the blinding glare of a head-light, I suddenly felt myself falling down, down, into space. Long after the world above had disappeared, I landed in utter darkness, unhurt except for the barking of my nose. Near at hand several live coals gleamed like watching eyes. I had walked into a cinder-pit on the track near the engine-house.
Giving a cat-like spring from the top of the largest heap of ashes, I grasped the rail above and pulled myself out. Beyond the station lay a thickly wooded park known as Queen’s Gardens. I climbed over the railing and stretched out in the long grass. But the foliage overhead offered no such shelter as had the trees of equatorial Ceylon, and I awoke in the morning dripping wet from the falling dew.
That afternoon I received a ticket and two rupees for chasing the tennis-balls, and I returned to Calcutta Saturday night.
CHAPTER XX
BEYOND THE GANGES
Two hours after my arrival in Calcutta, there was seen making his way through the streets of that city a youth who had been turned away from the Sailors’ Home by a hard-hearted manager because he had once left that place without permission for a trip “up country.” In his pocket was a single rupee. His cotton garments were threadbare rags through which the torrid sun had reddened his once white skin. Under one arm he carried a tattered, sunburned bundle of the size of a camera. In short, ’twas I.
Later, with much trouble, I gained entrance into the Seamen’s Mission. It was here that I made the acquaintance of the only guest of the place who paid his expenses. He was a clean, strong young man of twenty-five, named Gerald James, from Perth, Australia. He had been a kangaroo-hunter in his native land, and later a soldier in South Africa. After the war there he had turned northward with two companions. In Calcutta his partners had become policemen; but James, weary of bearing arms, had taken a position as salesman in a department-store.
Four days after my arrival a chance meeting with a German traveler who spoke no English raised my wealth to seven rupees. I had also made the acquaintance of a conductor who promised to let me ride as far as Goalando, a city on the banks of the Ganges. It was on the day following that I decided to escape from Calcutta and continue my journey eastward.
As I lay stretched on the roof of the building, that night, the man beside me rolled over in his blanket and peered at me through the darkness.
“That you, Franck?” he whispered.
The voice was that of James the Australian.