"Only to cut these strings," he said, with a hard laugh, recovering himself and dividing the cord which was tied round the paper containing the gold anklets. "Look, Gunga!" and he held them up to the light, and shook them till the little bells on them clashed gently. "Thou art good," she said, looking up as he held them above her, still shaking them; "they are very, very beautiful, but thou wilt not give them to me, for thou hast not got Tara. Ah! thou hast just come from her, and wilt not give them. Go! go back to her." "But my sister is her father's wife, and these are heavier than Tara's. I have not broken faith with thee, Gunga," he replied, "nor my oath at the Pâp-nâs temple. Take them--they are thine henceforth. And now wilt thou go with me, Gunga? I have prepared a horse for thee, and Bheema can walk." "To the end of life," cried the girl, who had risen to her knees to put on the anklets, and who now clasped his feet,--"to the end of life! Kill me if thou wilt, Moro Trimmul, who would care? It would be no pain to Gunga." CHAPTER IX. A thick heavy rain was falling, which had lasted nearly all day without intermission, and the afternoon was now advanced. The sky was one uniform tint of dark grey, in which, near the horizon, some yellowish, lurid colour occasionally appeared. Dark masses of cloud came up slowly from the south-west at times, causing a deeper gloom as they passed overhead, accompanied by bursts of rain, which sometimes fell in sheets, deluging the ground, and dashing up muddy spray from the soft earth. The air was stifling; and there was a strong sulphurous smell with the rain, which increased the disagreeable effect of the close, hot atmosphere. Sometimes a gentle breeze, hardly sufficient to give the rain a slanting direction, arose, and felt refreshing; but as the heavy clouds passed, it died away, and the rain fell perpendicularly again, with a constant monotonous plash, which, coming from a wide plain, sounded like a dull roar. Little could be seen of the plain itself; for not only was the rain too thick to allow of any distance to appear definitely, but there was a steamy mist rising from the previously heated earth, which increased the already existing dimness and gloom. Sometimes a few trees in the vicinity, which appeared tall and ghostly in the grey light and thick air, stood out more in detail as the rain slackened for a while, and seemed to give promise of breaking; and on these occasions two villages became dimly visible; one of them nearly a mile distant, the other perhaps half a mile farther, situated to the right and left of what, in dry weather, was a well-beaten road-track, but which could only now be known as such, by being bare of grass, and by the slightly raised banks, covered here and there by low bushes, which bounded it.