When all the grain of this most fertile tract is harvested, and the sugar-cane brakes have been cut and carried away on bullock-carts, when the linseed is pressed, and the sugar sold, and the wheat threshed and ground, it is the hot weather; no sowing or ploughing can be done. People must wait for the first burst of the rains, to soften the stone-like ground. And, oh, how sweet to the nostrils is the smell of earth after the first wild downpour! Meanwhile, they have money in their hands--the fruit of their labour. They have long, hot, idle days, and no occupation, so they rake up old land-feuds, old blood-feuds, old jealousies, and the result is but too frequently a man’s body found in a nullah, killed by a sickle or a lathi (heavy stick), or a woman’s corpse drawn out of some abandoned well. The jail gardens supplied all the vegetables to the station, and the mem sahibs, when the vegetable “doli” came late, knew well the reason--there had been a hanging. Chūnnee attended the first execution with apparently more trepidation than the criminal himself, who walked to his fate with a jaunty air, and on being asked if he had arranged all his affairs said-- “By your favour, yea;” and then, on second thoughts, added, with amazing vivacity, “There is one small brass lotah which I forgot. I desire that it be given to my sister-in-law.” And so, singing a song to Nirvana, he ascended the gallows and calmly met his fate. Another young man’s demeanour was outrivalled by that of his own father and the kinsfolk who had come to take leave of him. The execution was at half-past six, and the official in charge--a tender-hearted gentleman--stood waiting till the farewells were over, watch in hand. Time was up, but he would give this vigorous young Brahmin yet a few more minutes of life. He was engaged in eager conversation with his relatives, and it was commonly reported and suspected that he had actually confessed to the crime, and sacrificed himself in order to save a near kinsman. The official glanced at his watch once more, and was astounded to catch the eye of the culprit’s father, and hear him say, in a most matter-of-fact tone-- “Yea, truly, my son, time is up. Thou hadst better go at once, for, remember, we have fifteen koss to carry thee to the Ganges to burn--and we shall not get home till dark, and the moon is old!” The son, without a word, salaamed to this more than Roman parent, and then turned to meet his fate without an instant’s hesitation. Chūnnee had beheld many heroes of this type, but he had also seen others who had not had it in them to encounter death with similar fortitude. He had noted the wandering, terrified eye, the ashen lips drawn back from the chattering teeth, the twitching knee-caps, as the man was led forth to die like a dog; he had seen it, and the sight had made his heart melt like wax within him, and his limbs shake as if he had been stricken with palsy. It was his one horror, to be warned to attend an execution.