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Hundreds of boats from enormous doungas containing the noisy inhabitants of, I should suppose, a whole village, down to the tiniest shikara, whose passenger was perched with careful balance to retain a margin of safety to his two inches of freeboard converged upon the crowded bank, above which rose the mosque. How can I best attempt to describe the din, the crush, the light, the colour?

If a single bird had flapped its wings in the branches, if one little rodent had stirred in the underbrush, Little Shikara would likely have turned back. But the jungle-gods, knowing their son, stilled all the forest voices. He crept on, still looking now and again over his shoulder to see the village fire. It still made a bright yellow triangle in the dusk behind him.

One would think that thou wert a hunter of tigers thyself!" Little Shikara blushed beneath the laughter. For he was a very boyish little boy in most ways. But it seemed to him that his sturdy young heart was about to break open from bitterness. All of them agreed that Warwick Sahib, perhaps wounded and dying, might be lying by the ford, but none of them would venture forth to see.

The native's eyes seemed to light. "Hai, little one, thou hast thought of what thy elders had forgotten. There is level land there, and clear. And I shall go at the first ray of dawn " "But not to-night, Khusru ?" "Nay, little sinner! Wouldst thou have me torn to pieces?" Lastly Little Shikara went to his own father, and they had a moment's talk at the outskirts of the throng.

For he had decided to be frank with Little Shikara, trusting all to the courage of a child. "It all depends on thee. Pull back the hammer with thy thumb." Little Shikara obeyed. He drew it back until it clicked and did not, as Warwick had feared, let it slip through his fingers back against the breach. "Yes, Sahib," he whispered breathlessly.

He had always looked some way very joyful and tremulous and perhaps even pale if from the nature of things a brown boy ever can look pale. But it was the kind of paleness that one has after a particularly exquisite experience. It was not the dumb, teeth-chattering paleness of fear. "I saw the sergeant of the jungle," Little Shikara said after one of these excursions. And this made no sense at all.

Our shikara, a sort of canoe paddled by four active fellows, with the stern, where we sat on cushions, carefully screened from the sun by an awning, was brought alongside the dounga at about 11.30, as we had some seven or eight miles to accomplish before reaching the Nishat Bagh.

Not since his youth had left him to a gray world had his strong heart leaped in just this way before. "Merciful God!" he whispered in English. "Has a child come to save me?" Then he whipped again into the vernacular and spoke swiftly; for no further seconds were to be wasted. "Little Shikara, have you ever fired a gun?" "No, Sahib " "Then lift it up and rest it across my body.

Ye know that it is the wounded tiger that is most to be feared. One day, and he will go forth in pursuit of her again; and then ye will not see him riding back so grandly on his elephant. Perhaps she will come here, to carry away our children." Again Shikara tingled hoping that Nahara would at least come close enough to cause excitement.

Jane and I, however, were anxious to see what appearance Srinagar presented, so we manned the shikara with five able-bodied paddlers and pushed our way upwards. Turning into a side canal we passed a demolished bridge, and tried to force our way up a small but swift stream. Failing to make anything of it, we landed and had the boat carried over into a wider channel.