When the Birds Begin to Sing Part 32

"No, there is my house, that hut ahead, see."

It has come in sight not a moment too soon, for Eleanor's arms are cramped and paralysed by supporting his body, her cheek pale with the heat, her heart fluttering spasmodically.

Only a few steps more, and she will have reached the haven of refuge.

How foolish it would be to fail now.

Through sheer force of will she reaches the hut, and as the boy cries "Mother! mother!" she sinks exhausted in the entrance, still holding her suffering burden in her arms.

A woman rushes out, and takes her bleeding son from the stranger's embrace.

"He has been hurt," explains Eleanor faintly. "I carried him up the hill."

"Oh, you good soul!" cries the grateful mother, feeling her son's arms and legs; "and you're just as done up as can be. Come in, you poor young thing, and I'll give you a drink of Zoo to pull you round."

"No, thank you, I don't want anything. I am better now; but let me help you with the boy. We had better get his things off, and wash the wounds."

Together the two women tend the child. His leg is strained, not broken, and they put him to bed and watch him till he falls into a restless sleep.

Then their eyes meet, and the mother holds out her hand to Eleanor.

"G.o.d bless you!" she says; "if anything had happened to Tombo we should have broken our hearts. He is our only child."

Eleanor has recounted the history of the accident, leaving her share in the background, and making as light of it as possible.

She thinks, as she looks at the white woman, with her fair hair and sandy eyelashes, that something in the face brings an indistinct memory to her mind.

She glances curiously around the hut, adorned by the heads of animals.

"I must go," she says; "it is getting late."

"The boy is sleeping. I will walk home with you."

"No, stay by him. I shall be all right alone."

"They have shot a tiger, and will be all drunk in the village for a week. You are different to me. I must come."

"Thank you," says Eleanor. "I shall enjoy your companionship. May I ask your name?"

"Elizabeth Kachin. And yours?"

"Eleanor--Eleanor Quinton."

Mrs. Roche's eyes droop as she turns them away from the sleeping face of that innocent child.

* Spirits.

CHAPTER XVI.

OH, LOVE! IN SUCH A WILDERNESS AS THIS.

Eleanor grows very fond of Elizabeth Kachin and her dusky son. Since she rescued him that day from the trap Tombo thinks there is no one like the beautiful Mrs. Quinton.

Big Tombo, his father, an educated man who has spent many years of his life in England, also looks upon Eleanor with the same reverence and admiration as little Tombo.

Carol makes fun of the sandy-haired woman wedded to a native, and laughs at Eleanor for being friends with her.

"I have not so many friends that I can afford to pick or choose," she says simply to Quinton, who is smoking in the verandah, his legs crossed, and a graceful air of abandon in his att.i.tude.

She looks lovingly at his long, slim foot, remembering how it attracted her in old days.

"No, darling; I am afraid you must be getting bored to death in this beastly slow place."

A look of alarm steals over Eleanor's features. The distress in her voice is evident as she replies:

"Oh, no, Carol--are you?"

"I have plenty of sport," he says, watching the smoke wreath upwards; "it is different for me."

"And I have you," she answers tenderly; "that is all I want."

"Sweetest Eleanor," he drawls, letting her take his hand. "How easily you are satisfied!"

"I don't quite see that," she answers, puckering her forehead. "I have the only man I love here at my side, glorious scenery all round, I do just as I please, I come and go unquestioned, you have given me a horse to ride, and a house to inhabit, a heart to treasure----"

"Why do you put the heart last?"

She laughs at his question.

"Oh! merely by chance."

"Perhaps it is the least valuable," says Quinton, playing with her fingers.

"Don't be silly."

"I wish you were fond of sport, I would teach you to shoot."

"I cannot bear killing things. I really believe I should suffer as much as my victims."

"That would be very weak-minded of you."

"Perhaps, but I _have_ a weak mind, you know. I told you that at Copthorne, when you swallowed up my will."

"That sounds as if I were a devouring monster, darling."