Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
'A weaver went out to reap but stayed to unravel the corn-stalks. Ha! Ha! Ha! Is there any sense in a weaver? Janki Meah glared at Kundoo, but, as Janki Meah was blind, Kundoo was not impressed. He had come to argue with Janki Meah, and, if chance favoured, to make love to the old man's pretty young wife.
Pretty little Unda only knew that her old husband was a fool who could be managed. She took no interest in the collieries except in so far as they swallowed up Kundoo five days out of the seven, and covered him with coal-dust.
Far away down the gallery a small pumping-engine, used for keeping dry a deep working and fed with steam from above, was throbbing faithfully. They heard it cease. 'They have cut off the steam, said Kundoo hopefully. 'They have given the order to use all the steam for the pit-bank pumps. They will clear out the water.
'Without doubt God gives the blind knowledge, said Kundoo, with a look at Unda. 'Let it be as you say. I, for my part, do not know where lies the gallery of Tibu's gang, but I am not a withered monkey who needs oil to grease his joints with. Kundoo swung out of the hut laughing, and Unda giggled. Janki turned his sightless eyes towards his wife and swore.
"The name only had slipped my memory. Tibu's gang's gallery is here." "A lie," said Kundoo. "There have been no galleries in this place since my day." "Three paces was the depth of the ledge," muttered Janki, without heeding "and oh, my poor bones! I have found it! It is here, up this ledge, Come all you, one by one, to the place of my voice, and I will count you,"
Kundoo, doubting, drove the pick, but the first soft crush of the coal was a call to him. He was fighting for his life and for Unda pretty little Unda with rings on all her toes for Unda and the forty rupees.
He loaded her with ornaments not brass or pewter, but real silver ones and she rewarded him by flirting outrageously with Kundoo of Number Seven gallery gang. Kundoo was really the gang-head, but Janki Meah insisted upon all the work being entered in his own name, and chose the men that he worked with.
Somebody rose quietly and began walking over the coals. It was Janki, who was touching the walls with his hands. "Where is the ledge?" he murmured to himself. "Sit, sit!" said Kundoo. "If we die, we die. The air is very bad." But Janki still stumbled and crept and tapped with his pick upon the walls. The women rose to their feet. "Stay all where you are.
Kundoo was a great workman, and did his best not to get drunk, because, when he had saved forty rupees, Unda was to steal everything that she could find in Janki's house and run with Kundoo to a land where there were no mines, and every one kept three fat bullocks and a milch-buffalo. While this scheme ripened it was his custom to drop in upon Janki and worry him about the oil savings.
"Without doubt God gives the blind knowledge," said Kundoo, with a look at Unda. "Let it be as you say. I, for my part, do not know where lies the gallery of Tibu's gang, but I am not a withered monkey who needs oil to grease his joints with." Kundoo swung out of the hut laughing, and Unda giggled. Janki turned his sightless eyes toward his wife and swore.
Word Of The Day