So Chūnnee was led away captive, followed as far as the high-road by fully half the village; and for more than a mile along that dusty track, two little weeping creatures pattered behind him. At length the girl could go no further, and fell exhausted. Her father halted between his guard, and said-- “Girunda, take care of thy sister. Go to thy uncle; he will feed thee till I come back. Go now, ere nightfall.” And if he doth not receive them, what is to become of them? was a thought that harassed him all the weary march. At a turn of the road he turned and looked back, and saw the two small forlorn figures standing in the straight, white highway, watching him to the last. Chūnnee was brought up before the magistrate that day. He had been taken red-handed, and had not denied his guilt. He was silent with respect to the treasure. It had been a most daring dacoity, but, as it was his first offence, he would be only sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in Shahjhanpur jail. “And his two children?” he ventured to ask. “Who would care for them? How were they to live?” (There are no poor-houses in India.) “Oh, the neighbours, or your relations,” said the Sudder judge, knowing how immensely generous, good, and charitable the very poorest are to one another. “You have a brother, of course--he will take them.” Chūnnee was by no means so sanguine on this point. He was sent on foot to jail--a distance of sixty miles--and there put in leg-irons, and a convict sacking-coat, with a square cap to cover his shaven head. He was set to work to pick oakum. He worked steadily, though with a face and air of dogged despair. But what was the good of giving trouble? What was the good of anything? The jail fare was not jail fare to him--it was better than he had at home; and now that he had sufficient to eat, he grew strong. But how were his children faring? Were they starving? Other convicts--robbers, gamblers, dacoits--thought Chūnnee proud and sullen, he was so silent; or surely he was in for some great crime? Luckily for him, the jail daroga liked him, and promoted him to basket-making, and thence to the vegetable garden. His percentage on his earnings he did not take out in money, or even in the Sunday smoke. No; all went to the remission of his sentence. Truly, life was not so bad, save for the hangings--every convict was forced to attend--and these executions were not infrequent, for Shahjhanpur was in the centre of a district notorious for murders. It was a veritable case of “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.”