The Babu shook at the horrible sight,
And girded his ponderous loins for flight,
But Fate had ordained that the Boh should start
On a lone-hand raid of the rearmost cart,
And out of that cart, with a bellow of woe,
The Babu fell—flat on the top of the Boh!
For years had Harendra served the State,
To the growth of his purse and the girth of his pêt.[1]
There were twenty stone, as the tally-man knows,
On the broad of the chest of this best of Bohs.
And twenty stone from a height discharged
Are bad for a Boh with a spleen enlarged.
Oh, short was the struggle severe was the shock
He dropped like a bullock he lay like a block;
And the Babu above him, convulsed with fear,
Heard the labouring life-breath hissed out in his ear.
And thus in a fashion undignified
The princely pest of the Chindwin died.
*******
Turn now to Simoorie, where, all at his ease,
The Captain is petting the Bride on his knees,
Where the whit of the bullet, the wounded man's scream
Are mixed as the mist of some devilish dream
Forgotten, forgotten the sweat of the shambles
Where the hill-daisy blooms and the grey monkey gambols,
- ↑ Stomach.
