Page:On the Coromandel Coast.djvu/360

348 Finding their burden heavy and the path rocky, they sat down when they were half way up and waited for the breaking of the day.

‘I could never follow events exactly after that point, and I never dared to question the judge. One thing was certain that the coffin did not go up to the house. I believe that one of the coolies went up and told the judge that there was a large box waiting for him on the hill-side. Being an active man he went down to see what it was like.

'Acting on the principle that the least said is the soonest mended, I was quite satisfied to hear that it returned to the clerk; and I paid the coolies.

'The judge never alluded to the subject, but the lady did not forgive me so easily. Some weeks afterwards we met on a public ground. She shook hands with me and exclaimed: “Oh! how shocking! Death is written in your face. It is truly awful; you are perfectly ghastly!”

'I understood what she meant and laughed as I explained that it was not my fault. The general had ordered me to make the arrangement for burying her, and therefore she ought to slay him and not me. Thereat we were good friends again, and I have never engaged since to order another coffin for a lady who had fainted.'

After a residence of some years on the plains we returned to England on furlough. Never had the green marshes and silvery stretches of the Thames seemed so sweet as on the morning when our homeward-bound vessel passed out of the turmoil of the channel into the smooth water of the estuary. A lark singing overhead seemed a messenger sent expressly to greet us. The deep tone of the lowing cattle, so different from the pig-like grunts of the Indian cow, was a direct call from home;