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Updated: May 17, 2025
From that day the Indians hunted no more in the wood; and at length one day Nuflo, meeting an Indian who did not know him and with whom he had some talk, heard the strange story of the arrow, and that the mysterious girl who could not be shot was the offspring of an old man and a Didi who had become enamoured of him; that, growing tired of her consort, the Didi had returned to her river, leaving her half-human child to play her malicious pranks in the wood.
Let me please myself with the thought that he loves me. Is it true? Kamal Didi said so; but how can she know it? my conscience will not let me ask. Does he love me? How does he love me? What does he love my beauty or me? Beauty? let me see." She went to examine the reflection of her face in the water, but, failing to see anything, returned to her former place.
Nuflo probably knew more than he would say; I had failed, as we have seen, to win the secret from him by fair means, and could not have recourse to foul the rack and thumbscrew to wring it from him. To the Indians she was only an object of superstitious fear a daughter of the Didi and to them nothing of her origin was known.
"Didi," they said, addressing her affectionately and respectfully by the endearing name of sister, which is a custom permitted in Bengal to the servants of every household. "Didi, fear not! As long as there is breath in these bodies we will defend you. If the dacoits overtake us, we will guard you. No harm shall come to you."
He did not say, however, that I could teach anything to one of his years and attainments. I protested that he gave me too much praise, that they were just as brave. Did they not show a courage equal to mine by going every day to hunt in that wood which was inhabited by the daughter of the Didi? I came to this subject with fear and trembling, but he took it quietly.
And it was the daughter of the Didi, and she was burnt to ashes like a moth in the flames of a fire, and no one has ever heard or seen her since." It was well for me that he spoke rapidly, and finished quickly. Even before he had quite concluded I drew my cloak round my face and stretched myself out.
After that we went on in silence for some time; at length he said that the being I had seen in the wood and was not afraid of was no innocent young girl, but a daughter of the Didi, an evil being; and that so long as she continued to inhabit the wood they could not go there to hunt, and even in other woods they constantly went in fear of meeting her.
I had no wish to gratify her curiosity, with the truth at all events, knowing very well that with regard to the daughter of the Didi her feelings were as purely savage and malignant as those of Kua-ko.
It was plain to them that some very unusual interest took me to the wood; consequently I could not expect that they would tell me anything they might know to enlighten me about the matter; and I concluded that Kua-ko's words about the daughter of the Didi, and what she would do if he blew an arrow at a bird, had accidentally escaped him in a moment of excitement.
At last, thinking only of Rima, I asked him if any other person or persons besides his people came to the wood now or lived there. He said no. "Once," I said, "there was a daughter of the Didi, a girl you all feared: is she there now?" He looked at me with suspicion and then shook his head. I dared not press him with more questions; but after an interval he said plainly: "She is not there now."
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