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Updated: June 19, 2025
He sat down to think, and Ameera dozed lightly. 'Get hence, sahib, said her mother under her breath. 'It is not good that she should find you here on waking. She must be still. 'I go, said Holden submissively. 'Here be rupees. See that my baba gets fat and finds all that he needs. The chink of the silver roused Ameera. 'I am his mother, and no hireling, she said weakly.
The little lord of the house, as Pir Khan called him, grew sorrowful and complained of pains who had never known the meaning of pain. Ameera, wild with terror, watched him through the night, and in the dawning of the second day the life was shaken out of him by fever the seasonal autumn fever.
The verbal notification of the transfer had been edged by a cheerful remark that Holden ought to think himself lucky in being a bachelor and a free man. He came to break the news to Ameera. 'It is not good, she said slowly, 'but it is not all bad. There is my mother here, and no harm will come to me unless indeed I die of pure joy. Go thou to thy work and think no troublesome thoughts.
There is no harm; but speak softly, said the mother. 'It only needed thy presence to make me all well, said Ameera. 'My king, thou hast been very long away. What gifts hast thou for me? Ah, ah! It is I that bring gifts this time. Look, my life, look. Was there ever such a babe? Nay, I am too weak even to clear my arm from him. 'Rest then, and do not talk. Look canst thou see in this light?
Holden realised his pain slowly, exactly as he had realised his happiness, and with the same imperious necessity for hiding all trace of it. In the beginning he only felt that there had been a loss, and that Ameera needed comforting, where she sat with her head on her knees shivering as Mian Mittu from the house-top called, Tota! Tota! Tota!
Frequently, however, emotional similarity between the setting and the characters is less serviceable, for the sake of emphasis, than emotional contrast. In the following passage from Mr. Kipling's "Without Benefit of Clergy," the serene and perfect happiness of Holden and Ameera is emphasized by contrast with the night-aspect of the plague-infested city:
Be careful of him, my life; but he can almost grip with his hands. Holden found one helpless little hand that closed feebly on his finger. And the clutch ran through his body till it settled about his heart. Till then his sole thought had been for Ameera. He began to realise that there was some one else in the world, but he could not feel that it was a veritable son with a soul.
By every rule and law she should have been otherwise, for he was an Englishman, and she a Mussulman's daughter bought two years before from her mother, who, being left without money, would have sold Ameera shrieking to the Prince of Darkness if the price had been sufficient.
The rains did not come, and the earth turned to iron lest man should escape death by hiding in her. The English sent their wives away to the hills and went about their work, coming forward as they were bidden to fill the gaps in the fighting-line. Holden, sick with fear of losing his chiefest treasure on earth, had done his best to persuade Ameera to go away with her mother to the Himalayas.
=Emotional Contrast in Setting.= Frequently, however, emotional similarity between the setting and the characters is less serviceable, for the sake of emphasis, than emotional contrast. In the following passage from Mr. Kipling's "Without Benefit of Clergy," the serene and perfect happiness of Holden and Ameera is emphasized by contrast with the night-aspect of the plague-infested city:
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