Honest, sweet little woman, with an honest plodding husband in a native regiment, inhabiting the dreary crumbling fort, without a murmur, whilst living in hopes of better things to come. Soft-voiced, considerate towards her native servants who worshipped her, one of the finest shots in India, and a true upholder of the British Raj in word, action, and clothes.
A perfect oasis, in fact, among the desert of her sisters, who storm in season and out at their native staff, before whom they likewise show themselves in ill-considered négligé, with their unbrushed hair down their backs, and their bare feet thrust into the evening shoes of last night's dance.
So it came about without any undue fuss that, after surviving the excruciating heat of the railway journey, three sahibs, two mem-sahibs, and their servants steamed out of Kulna in two launches to Tiger's Point, where awaited them the finest shikari in all Bengal, with an adequate retinue in which was included a chukler or skin dresser.
And who would notice the look in an ayah's eyes as she wiped her beloved mem-sahib's ant-ridden bunk with cotton-waste soaked in kerosene, and who on earth would connect the jungle guide with the British Museum.
CHAPTER XXX
"A mighty hunter, and his prey was man!"—Pope.
It was the second evening and they were nearing the ruined temple.
Walking silently and in single file along a faintly discernible track is an eerie proceeding if you are not used to the Sunderbunds.
True, in this jungle there are no serpent-like creepers festooned from tree to tree to impede your progress, or luxuriant and rank vegetation to hide snakes and other poisonous reptiles; neither is there a canopy of thick dark leaves above to obliterate the light of day, or the stars at night.
But the space between the crowding sundri trees which predominate, is packed with an undergrowth of light shrubs through which you have to force and tear your way if you lose the track; and you trip and twist your ankle at every step on the abominable sundri breathers which thrust themselves through the soil at every inch, and vary in thickness from a stick of vermicelli to a good stout bough.