hifts, varied with "custul-bake," could be
imposed upon him with the regularity of the calendar; for, after a
successful day's _shikar_, with a tiger spread at full length on the
grass before the tent for the benefit of an admiring semicircle of
enthusiastic villagers, the quality of a meal used to be a secondary
consideration.

Well--what use to repine? Even a cook must sometimes be excused, since
he was not God to create something out of nothing. Peradventure, the
timely indisposition of the babe within the tent would offer
distraction. In the interludes of stirring the pots and declaiming
against fate and the misdemeanours of the _masalchi_, the cook soothed
his ruffled spirits with a pull at his beloved _hukha_.

Yes, the Sahib was married, worse luck! and lived, above all, to please
his Memsahib who, to him, was the sun, moon, and stars; the light of the
world. And she?--of a sort wholly unsuited to the conditions of his
life; a flower plucked to wither in a furnace-blast. The rough soil of
the country was no place for a delicate plant; and such was also
apparent in the case of her infant. Since its arrival from the hills
where it was born, it daily faded as though a blight had descended upon
its vitality; and now it was stricken with a fever.

Devil take sahibs for their folly! This one had been content enough as a
bachelor, hunting and shooting in his spare time, and consorting with
his kind where games were played to pass the time away; what-for did he
allow himself to be shackled thus during his visit to _Belait_? It
passed understanding; for there were many _Miss Babas_ in the country,
already acclimatised, from among whom he might have selected a suitable
wife; one who could at least have made herself intelligible to his
servants in their own language, instead of this one who created endless
confusion by non-comprehension. But no! he had been unable to stand the
allurements of her person. The rounded outlines of her slender form and
the bloom on her flawless cheek had enslaved him, depriving him of the
power to resist. Truly she was good to look upon, as every masculine eye
betrayed by its open homage.

In all the annals of the District, never had there been a more
picturesque creature than this girl-wife, with her hair like ripe corn
and eyes like full-blown flowers of heavenly blue. Even the servants in
gazing on their wonder forgot to heed the orders she delivered through
the ayah, whose linguistic pow