Page:Bengal Dacoits and Tigers.pdf/36

 The light from his lantern revealed bow-ma and her son, clinging to each other and weeping piteously.

"Who are you? What ails you?" he asked. The distraught mother, unconscious of the flight of time, thinking him the heartless dacoit returned to kill her boy, fell at his feet in an agony of supplication: "Spare my son. Take my life instead."

"I am a chowkidar (watchman). What is up?" But so dulled were her ears with fear and grief that he was twice obliged to repeat his words. When the joyful intelligence reached her brain she burst into tears. "O! save my son." Then the consciousness that the danger was past reminded her of her own plight, and she sobbed: "Give me something to wear."

The policeman had noticed her semi-nude state. Dropping his pugree at her feet he turned away. She shook out its many folds and draped it about her body. Then she related what had befallen her and pointed towards the direction the thief had taken.

The policeman walked cautiously forward, his lantern raised in one hand and his lathi tightly