With the curious canine instinct, divining rightly friend or foe, the dog allowed the approach of the two Burmen. Maung knelt and raised the prostrate woman; the weak head fell heavily on his shoulder, then stirred uneasily, the eyes opened, and the dying lips tried again and again to find utterance. Broken words at last whispered faintly over and over again, 'Bébé Ingalay—Mah Kloo! Thakin Missee Bébé!' Then the wasted hands tried to remove the baby. Maung understood, and signed to the youth to lift it from her neck. The movement woke the child, and it uttered a thin cry. The sound roused the flickering life of the dying woman for an instant; with a last movement she lightly touched the wee dark head, smiled faintly, and died.
"Maung and his young companion came to what they sought at last."
A shallow grave was hastily dug. A pouch in the tattered garments contained a few coins of money and a curious small gold cross. Maung Yet touched his tattoo anxiously as he took the latter: it must be, he thought, some strange charm. Then he placed the coins in the mouth of the dead woman, in the belief that this provided ferry-hire over the death river, and he and Lan Wee lifted the woman into the grave. Then, with all speed, the two Burmen left the hated jungle, carrying the tiny infant, the lean dog following closely.
THE BOY TRAMP.
[(Continued from page 61.)]
"She looked a little suspiciously at my muddy legs."
The cyclist was a good-looking, short, but well-built man, clad in a light, home-spun suit, with knickerbockers and a Panama hat. On the frame of his bicycle was an ordinary mackintosh haversack, and, strapped behind the saddle, a paint-box, a folding sketching-stool, and a good-sized sketching-block. Fixing the pump, he knelt down to inflate the tyre; but the pump was rather small, the sun was hot (as I felt, having no hat), and the man seemed soon to weary of his job. He had glanced once or twice in my direction, and now he rose, blew out his cheeks, and cried: "Hi, boy! do you want to earn a copper?"