fell upon the knotted hair of the head of a man. He was dead, for no one but I, the Strong One of Barhwi, could have lived in that race. He had been dead full two days, for he rode high, wallowing, and was an aid to me. I laughed then, knowing for a surety that I should yet see Her and take no harm; and I twisted my fingers in the hair of the man, for I was far spent, and together we went down the stream—he the dead and I the living. Lacking that help I should have sunk: the cold was in my marrow and my flesh was ribbed and sodden on my bones. But he had no fear who had known the uttermost of the power of the river; and I let him go where he chose. At last we came into the suck of a side-current that set to the right bank and I strove with my feet to draw with it. But the dead man swung heavily in the whirl, and I feared that some branch had struck him and that he would sink. The tops of the Tamarisk brushed my knees, so I knew we were come into flood-water above the crops, and, after, I let down my legs and felt bottom—the ridge of a field—and, after, the dead man stayed upon a knoll under a fig tree, and I drew my body from the water rejoicing.
Does the Sahib know whither the back-wash of the flood had borne me? To the knoll which is the eastern boundary-mark of the village of Pateera! No other place. I drew the dead man up on the grass for the service that he had done me, and also because I knew not whether I should need him again. Then I went, crying thrice like a jackal, to the appointed place which was near the byre of the lambardar's house. But my Love was already there, weeping upon her knees. She feared that the flood had swept my hut at the Barliwi Ford. When I came softly through the ankle-deep water. She thought it was a ghost and would have fled, but I put my arms round Her and . . . I was no ghost in those days, and though I am an old man now. Ho! Ho! Dried corn, in truth. Maize without juice. Ho! Ho![1]
- ↑ I grieve to say that the Warden of the Barhwi Ford is responsible here for two very bad puns in the vernacular.—R. K.
