India -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, English
Does the Sahib know whither the backwash 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 headman's house. But my Love was already there,
weeping. She feared that the flood had swept my hut at the Barhwi 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, though I am an old man now. Ho! Ho! Dried corn, in
truth. Maize without juice. Ho! Ho! [Footnote: I grieve to say that the
Warden of Barhwi ford is responsible here for two very bad puns in the
vernacular.--_R.K._]
I told Her the story of the breaking of the Barhwi Bridge, and She said
that I was greater than mortal man, for none may cross the Barhwi in full
flood, and I had seen what never man had seen before. Hand in hand we went
to the knoll where the dead lay, and I showed Her by what help I had made
the ford. She looked also upon the body under the stars, for the latter
end of the night was clear, and hid Her face in Her hands, crying: "It is
the body of Hirnam Singh!" I said: "The swine is of more use dead than
living, my Beloved," and She said: "Surely, for he has saved the dearest
life in the world to my love. None the less, he cannot stay here, for that
would bring shame upon me." The body was not a gunshot from her door.
Then said I, rolling the body with my hands: "God hath judged between us,
Hirnam Singh, that thy blood might not be upon my head. Now, whether I
have done thee a wrong in keeping thee from the burning-ghat, do thou and
the crows settle together." So I cast him adrift into the flood-water, and
he was drawn out to the open, ever wagging his thick black beard like a
priest under the pulpit-board. And I saw no more of Hirnam Singh.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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