India -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, English
After the death, Dumoise crept into his own house and refused to be
comforted. He did his duties perfectly, but we all felt that he should go
on leave, and the other men of his own Service told him so. Dumoise was
very thankful for the suggestion--he was thankful for anything in those
days--and went to Chini on a walking-tour. Chini is some twenty marches
from Simla, in the heart of the Hills, and the scenery is good if you are
in trouble. You pass through big, still deodar-forests, and under big,
still cliffs, and over big, still grass-downs swelling like a woman's
breasts; and the wind across the grass, and the rain among the deodars
says--"Hush--hush--hush." So little Dumoise was packed off to Chini, to
wear down his grief with a full-plate camera and a rifle. He took also a
useless bearer, because the man had been his wife's favorite servant. He
was idle and a thief, but Dumoise trusted everything to him.
On his way back from Chini, Dumoise turned aside to Bagi, through the
Forest Reserve which is on the spur of Mount Huttoo. Some men who have
traveled more than a little say that the march from Kotegarh to Bagi is
one of the finest in creation. It runs through dark wet forest, and ends
suddenly in bleak, nipped hillside and black rocks. Bagi dâk-bungalow is
open to all the winds and is bitterly cold. Few people go to Bagi. Perhaps
that was the reason why Dumoise went there. He halted at seven in the
evening, and his bearer went down the hillside to the village to engage
coolies for the next day's march. The sun had set, and the night-winds
were beginning to croon among the rocks. Dumoise leaned on the railing of
the veranda, waiting for his bearer to return. The man came back almost
immediately after he had disappeared, and at such a rate that Dumoise
fancied he must have crossed a bear. He was running as hard as he could up
the face of the hill.
But there was no bear to account for his terror. He raced to the veranda
and fell down, the blood spurting from his nose and his face iron-grey.
Then he gurgled--"I have seen the _Memsahib_! I have seen the _Memsahib_!"
"Where?" said Dumoise.
"Down there, walking on the road to the village. She was in a blue dress,
and she lifted the veil of her bonnet and said--'Ram Dass, give my
_salaams_ to the _Sahib_, and tell him that I shall meet him next month at
Nuddea.' Then I ran away, because I was afraid."
What Dumoise said or did I do not know. Ram Dass declares that he said
nothing, but walked up and down the veranda all the cold night, waiting
for the _Memsahib_ to come up the hill and stretching out his arms into
the dark like a madman. But no _Memsahib_ came, and, next day, he went on
to Simla cross-questioning the bearer every hour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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