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But unknown to them, so busy had they been hammering and swearing, the police had arrived and now followed in on their heels. The dacoits were all captured and confessed their guilt as to the murder of the palki-bearers and the probable death of the two durwans, who, they averred, had fought like tigers.
At. one of these villages the party halted awhile for rest and refreshment, and then on again in the fierce heat of a close Indian day. The palki-bearers sighted this ideal resting-place and asked the jhee to inform their young mistress of it, and beseech that they might stop there and refresh themselves with a draught of water, after which they would be able to travel still faster,
But the maidservant encouraged her and promised to devise a plan; so when the day came for them to start for the bride's house she made a paste of ground mowah flowers and out of this fashioned an image of a child; and when the procession started off, with the Raja in a palki, and drummers, and palki-bearers, the maidservant was also carried in a palki and pretended that she was holding the child.
The pseudo palki-bearers next informed the listeners that they were the servants of a very wealthy man and had been conveying his daughter to her parents-in-law's house. "But" they boldly declared, "our master's daughter is such a troublesome girl. She causes us much anxiety whenever she is sent to visit her mother-in-law.
"Now that he has delivered us from this danger, he will think that he has a claim on us and will treat us as his servants; let us cut open his stomach and then the Rakhas will eat him." So they turned on him, cut open his stomach, and went their ways. Then the wounded prince told the palki-bearers to carry his bride back to her father's house.
After an early dinner he started, attended by many palki-bearers and the old servant. The moon rose bright and glorious and bathed the picturesque country in soft radiance. The silence of the forest was broken only by the rhythmic cries of the bearers and the pat-pat of their feet. The first stream was reached and the bearers asked for a halt.
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