Pindi to be accomplished in two days, decided me at
least to enjoy the happiness of a few hours on my back,
as an enforced uprightness was likely to be my lot for
the best part of the next forty-eight hours.
A wild thunderstorm burst about midnight, relieving
the overburdened atmosphere. I t had been intensely
hot, and no breathing thing had been able to rest quietly
while the tempest was brewing, and through the open
windows and doors, set ajar to catch the faintest breath
of air, the uneasy movements! of my escort sleeping in
the open, the stirrings of ponies could be heard, and in
my head I felt that nerve chords were being screwed
tighter, tighter. Thank Heaven it had come! Round
the hills roared and echoed and repeated the thunder.
The length and breadth of the Dal was illumined with
white flame, the over-powering scent of flowers was
diluted by the rain drops from scintillating sheets of
liquid crystal. Relieved of one tension, understanding
at last why our own life had been so painfully conscious
to us, as if aware of our imprisoned spirits as distinct
entities, we turned and slept when the fading away of
the noiseful thunder permitted it, the coolies and
jampanis below rolling up in their blankets, sheltered
by the verandah-.
The unearthly white flare of the false dawn was in
the sky when I got up an hour or so later, and thè stars;
fresh flashed, winked with that pleasant pertnèss they
win from rain clouds. A cup of tea was a grateful
opener of sleepy eyes, and with a queasy feeling that I
had parted company with all comforts for an indefinite
period, I said good-bye, salaaming gravely to the muffled
ghosts that arose from dark passages, shady verandahs,
outside houses as I passed into the garden. Once mòre
“good-bye” as I packed into the rickshaw, good-bye to
perfumed rose bushes, to great/gorgeous hollyhocks, to
graceful ipomoeas, “ plume-waving ferns,” and pearly
portulaeas. They had all come to perfection since I
first saw them, showing : sketchily their future charms,
and their pleasant, bright.faces now looked ghostly and
sad, sprinkled with rain-drop téars,, and white in the
starlight. Nature is generally so unsympathetic, so
aloof from the joys and sorrows of thé mortals that walk
lovingly in her ways, studying her face and taking
careful note of her mysteries, that this little exhibition
of feeling'touched me, and as my jinrickshaw was
quickly run down the path, I turned again to wave
farewell to the tall ones of the flock, that craned long
necks over the wall, or threw long tendrils across, to
afford me a last glimpse.' ^
Quickly down the road we passed, slowing as we
mounted to the gap, faster again on the long descent to
the Residency, then under the deep shade of giant
poplars to the mail office, a picturesque thatched
building of nogged' brickwork. Naturally I had to
wait; that is. the East, one eternal waiting where the
fittest (those who survive) know best how to> work and
“wait,” the fate of those who “ hustle the E a st” is writ
elsewhere with certainty. ..
That July night there was little hardship in
lingering when the .alternative was a passage in a
stuffy waggon. The‘moon had set early, the skies
were clean swept, the: light unseen, hidden by the
gaunt eastern ranges, "could be guessed at as the
stars nearing the rocky, heights were nipped out. They,
too, were saying good-bye, and the unfeeling sun was
having his way cleared before him, prepared to shine as