Thornhill; "but I'm glad that you've got over your fear of old forts. No shaitāns [devils] in Culdurg, I hope 'Hur hur Mahadeoeh,'1 eh?"

"Oh," cried Murriana waving his hands deprecatingly, "the sahib must not say that word. It is not lucky; and this is the very night, so many years ago."

He was evidently shaken by some unpleasant memory, for he trembled visibly, and his dark brown face turned to a ghastly greenish yellow.

"All right Murriana," said his master kindly. "You have permission to go."

And Murriana made obeisance, and left the premises.

"What was that about the shaitāns and the fort, Major?" asked a young officer. "Murriana didn't seem to like it."

"I don't know," said he rather shortly, and smoking in quick puffs. "He thought he did."

"I say, Dr. Daly," asked a young infantry officer, winking at the same time to his fellows, addressing the doctor of the Irregulars, a big, rawboned Irishman, and a terribly hard rider, to whom the Major did greatly incline, though he "sat upon "him about seven times a week; "do you believe in ghosts?"

"Yes," replied he; "don't you?" "No, I don't."

and such like. Now I'll bet you two to one the Major doesn't believe in them. Do you, Major?"

"You're too fond of betting, Gordon. I'm not sure that I don't. I'll tell you a story" (and the two conspirators exchanged a triumphant glance) :

"It's a good many years ago. I was a subaltern in those days, and promotion was even slower than it is now, as you will readily believe when I tell you that there were then ensigns of fifteen years standing. I was quartered in the Mysore country, and had got two months' leave to go on a shikar trip to the western ghats. Maryanne, as you call him, was my shikari then as now. We marched to Chickmugloor in the Nuggur Division, and then we left the main road and marched to Wastara ; there I left my bullock-cart, and hired a gang of fourteen Lambanies (the same wandering caste whom you call Brinjaries here) to carry my little tent and scanty baggage. From thence I struck across the hills through a beautiful wild country for twenty-two miles to Sultanpet, a village at the foot of the great hill-fort of Ballairai Durg.

"Sultanpet was an insignificant village, inhabited for the most part by Baders, manly, good-natured fellows, as I have always found them in the Mysore country, and excellent sportsmen. There were a few families of Mussulmans, scowling, ill-conditioned brutes, and an opium-sodden scoundrel, who called himself the kiladar [fortcommandant], for the fort of Ballairai Durg had once been an important outpost, in Tippoo's time, and a gaol for state prisoners; and indeed one of my reasons for going there was that a favourite cousin of my grandfather's (who was then alive, though a very old man) had been taken prisoner in General Matthews's ill-fated attack on Nuggur in 1783, and was reported to have died, or been made away with at Ballairai Durg, and my grand

them, all of you, on the march, and how the day won't break till they are gone.

"It was a sight to see. I can see it now, through the mists of fifteen long years, as if it were yesterday. The day hadn't fairly broken, and the valleys were still black as night, but all the mountain tops had caught a rosy stain, like that of the inside of a shell, a colour such as no painter on earth could match. I've seen the sun rise often enough, worse luck! but I've never seen anything like the daybreak on those hills. I don't know

if any of you chaps have?"

66

"No, Major," said the doctor, we haven't; but 'twas seen and described long before your time, and by a blind man too. 'Pon me sowl, you're not blind-I wish you were sometimes.

“Ημος δ' ἠριγένεια φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ηώς,

says old Homer: When the rosyfingered morning, daughter of the dawn, appeared.'

"Did he now? It's none of your chaff, is it?"

"No," replied the doctor, "I can't chaff in Greek; I wish I could."

"Ay," said the Major, "rosyfingered, that's just it; touching the hill-tops and dropping a little light on them, till peak after peak grows bright, and blushes in the morning. That was what I saw, and then the mist rolled back to the valleys; Kalasa shone out close by; Coodery Mook [the horse-face], some seven thousand feet high, to the northward; the Baba Boodens behind me; and in front the sea, dark by the shore, with the plains and jungles of Canara for many miles between, but on the horizon catching a streak of light away from the shadow of the hills.

"Well, I didn't do much that morning. I shot a couple of sambre for the people; there were a good many about on the edges of the ravines, but they were rather shy and wanted stalking. We found fresh tracks of bison, and marked the place for next day, and then I went and viewed the

fort. It was all in ruins; but the western curtain was still standing and formed a good shelter from the weather, and there I was minded to pitch my tent.

"The view was wonderful. There was no ditch to the west, indeed the strength of the place lay in the difficulty of the landward approach. The ground in front sloped away like a lawn for half a mile, and then fell sheer, and in all the ravines below the jungle clustered crisp and thick, the tops of the trees only showing to the edge, whilst beyond them, mellowed by the distance, the plains lay simmering in the summer haze, and beyond the plains the great mirror of the glittering sea.

"Hallo! you chaps, you're not smoking. Well, I agree with you; it's time to turn in."

But here there was a general shout, "No! No! Major. Go on, we want to hear about the ghost." "I didn't say

"Ghost!" said he;

anything about a ghost. I never saw a ghost in my life, I'm only telling you what happened."

"All right," said the doctor, nudging his neighbour. "He's on. Slip a little more whisky into his tumbler when he's not looking. That's the shtuff."

66

'Well, all right. I'll go on if you like, though there isn't much to tell. Barabbas and the coolies came up and pitched the tents, and half a dozen Baders, with bows and arrows and matchlocks, came with them, keen shikarries all of them, and good trackers. We sent them out for the sambre, which they soon brought up in triumph, and then they dressed them for a royal feast, reserving a portion for the servants and me.

"My khalāsī, Ghulam Hoosein,1 wouldn't touch his share, as the beasts hadn't been properly halalled; 2 but

1 The slave of Hoosein, a common Mussulman prenomen.

2 Made lawful by cutting their throat, and repeating the words "Bismillah el rahyman ul rahim" (in the name of God the merciful and gracious).

he asked if we were going after bison next day, and said that one of his brethren would come up and show us a sure find, and would come with us to make certain that the last offices were duly performed for the dead. I told him he might come himself and do it if he chose, but that I didn't want any of his brethren, as I didn't like the look of them, at which an evil-looking Mussulman, who lurking behind the baggage, and whom I had not noticed before, made a gesture of contempt and spat upon the ground. I thought it best to pretend that I had not seen this behaviour, though I was greatly minded to kick him.

was

"The Lumbanies pitched their tents some distance away from the walls, in the direction of the landward gate, and held high revel in the evening after I had served them out a tot of arrack a-piece; but the Baders took their meat away, and could not be persuaded to pass the night on the hill. Murriana slept under one of the wing-walls of my little tent, and Barabbas and the khalāsī in the cooking tent close by. The night passed quietly. I slept the deep and soundless sleep of the weary, but Barabbas, I suspect, had a drain at the arrack bottle, and the slave likewise (pious Mussulman though he was), for Barabbas was late with my tea, and the slave seemed more stupid than was his wont; but Murriana waked me as usual at four.

"The Lumbanies, when I sent for one of them to carry a spare gun, were not to be found. Their camp was standing, their cooking-pots and scanty baggage were in their places, but not a man was to be seen, Murriana could not say what had become of them. They were all there when we had turned in, as merry as crickets, talking in their peculiar patois, and singing through their noses to the strumming of a sitar. Murriana said he thought he had heard some kind of a row in the night, but he evidently knew no more what had become of them than I.

"Perhaps,' replied he doubtfully, but he seemed thoughtful, and evidently did not agree with me.

"Well, never mind,' said I; we mustn't lose our whole morning looking for those fellows. Pick up the

guns, and come on.'

"So we started for the ravine where we had found the bison track, and as soon as day broke we were rewarded by the sight of a magnificent solitary bull, feeding on the young grass, not more than two hundred yards away from the edge of the jungle.

"Come on, sahib,' said Murriana, 'we'll get round that hill, and into the jungle to the lee-side of him, and he'll feed right on to us.'

""Good,' said I, and off we started. We got to the ravine in about ten minutes, without any trouble, and squatted behind the fallen trunk of a great tree. The path, beaten dowr through the long grass and marked by bison tracks without number, led past our hiding place at a distance of about twenty yards, and the great beast was feeding quietly, drawing nearer to us as he fed. I felt rather like a murderer in my ambush; he looked such a grand harmless beast, that I thought it a real shame to kill him just for sport-not that it came into my head for a moment to let him off. It looked, nevertheless, as if I had been reckoning my chickens before they were hatched, for when he had grazed on to within one hundred and twenty yards of us, up went his nose into the air without a moment's warning, and instead of bearing down on us, he went off at a tangent in a smart canter to another ravine some five hundred yards away.

"My pity now quickly turned to rage. I drew a bead, as well as I could at that angle, behind his shoulder, and hit him, for he staggered but didn't stop, and soon reached the shelter of the friendly wood.

"Ah!' said Murriana. 'It's that

hill-people, whose mothers and grandmothers are quite unfit to conduct girls' schools, who are themselves brothers-in-law of quantities of degraded people, whose aunts are never seen in decent society, who are, besides, the children of owls, whose fathers' mouths are full of the stockin-trade of sweepers;' and so on, as you can guess for yourselves, while he fairly danced with rage, and shook his fist at some of our poor Lumbanies, who were coming gaily over the hill to windward, little recking of the evil which they had done.

"Come on, Murriana,' said I, 'let's take up the tracks. Ah! I knew I had hit him, here's blood.'

“Oh, those animals have any amount of blood,' replied he crossly. 'Ah! the Huzoor is right. 'Tis red blood-froth. His life will go ! Come on, Ghulam Hoosein. knife sharp?'

Is your

"Yes,' replied the slave, grinning and feeling its edge with his thumb. 'Bismillah!'

"We followed the tracks easily through the jungle, the footmarks, large as they were, looking strangely small for so great a beast, with the toes pointed and in contact, like a deer's, and not spreading out like those of a domestic cow. Then we came to a bare stony hill, where we lost them. The blood marks had ceased for some little time before. Here the Lumbanies joined us, with a Bader who was said to be a famous tracker, and Murriana, though he eyed them askance, was too good a shikari to make any unnecessary noise.

"He's gone over the hill, no doubt,' said I. 'Ask the Bader what's at the other side?' But that crafty woodsman pointing to a broken twig some six feet from the ground, in the direction of a little ravine to the right rear of the hill, and saying in Canarese, The water is there, your wisdom,' trotted off confidently in that direction. Well, to make a long story short, we found the poor beast at bay, and I gave him the coup de grâce.

Ghulam halalled him in the orthodox manner, and as the Lumbanies, being Hindoos, professed themselves unable to eat beef however savage, I told Ghulam to take as much as he wanted for himself and his brethren, and to bring home the head and marrow-bones for me for if any of you have never eaten bisons' marrow-bones you have yet to learn to what a height of lusciousness marrow can ascend. I then continued my stalk, and shot three stag sambre and a jungle sheep, so that the village was amply supplied with meat for some days to come.

"When I got back to camp I found Barabbas sober, and breakfast ready, and after a good bathe in a beautiful little mountain stream, I had a quiet smoke, and a read, and then, I think I went to sleep.

"Before dinner I had a long stroll over the hills, enjoying the cool air mightily. When I came back it was just dark, and I found Barab as and Ghulam Hoosein hanging about the tent door, with some dusky figures in the background.

"What does he want, Barabbas?' I asked.

"He says the kiladar is not well in body, sar.'

666

Sorry to hear it. Tell him to stop making a beast of himself with opium and arrack.'