The day's tramp had been more than usually a toilsome one for Bipin. He had taken a narrow path that seemed to wander capriciously amid tangled underbrush with no particular destination. The sun had set without a village or habitation in sight, and the mysterious silence of the jungle, its ominous shadows, its majestic gloom, filled his soul with dread. He was reluctant to go forward, afraid to remain on the spot, and hesitated to turn back. His terrified fancy beheld the eyes of a panther or a tiger glaring out at him from behind every bush. The breaking of a twig, the sound of his own footsteps startled him nearly out of his senses. Thrice that day had a fox crossed his path, the worst possible omen. He beat his breast in his wretchedness. In turn, his fat cheeks and brow became flushed, and chill as the damp slab of a tomb.
"Oh, what a fool have I been," he groaned, "to mix my life up in the intrigues and ambitions of a court. How much better had I only remained in my humble condition with my good uncles. I would never have come to this unlucky pass."
Before him the path made a bend. Through the branches he thought he discerned a flickering light. It might come from a hut, or, he shivered, from the watch fire of a detachment of the Foreigners. In the morning he had heard that parties of them were beating the jungle for fugitives.
But in his deplorable situation, he reasoned, that it would be better to fall into their hands with the chance of being able to prove his innocence of rebellion, than remain where he was, a prey to some malign influence that, for all he knew to the contrary, might change him into a bat. He gathered his tattered garments about him, and moved cautiously toward the light. He had not taken many steps when a hand stretched out from the darkness laid a firm grasp upon his shoulder. At the same moment a voice in his own language gruffly called on him to halt.
"Who art thou, and whitherward"?
Bipin cast his arms above his head despairingly. His challenger might be a robber, or the Native sentry of a Foreign encampment.
"But a poor traveller—a devotee on his way to the holy river," he cried timorously, "a man of peace seeking a shelter for the night."
It was a fortunate inspiration that prompted him to pose as a pilgrim to the bank of the holy Ganges. The vilest malefactor would respect the sanctity of his person undergoing such a pious obligation. Had the idea only occurred to him before, it would have saved many qualms of nervous emotion. The accursed fox would have fled precipitately at the cry of "Ganga! Ganga"!
To Bipin's relief his captor replied in friendly accents: