Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/314

 The fever held him—the Captain said, "I'd give a hundred to look at his head!"

The Hospital punkahs creaked and whirred, But Babu Harendra (Gomashta) heard.

He thought of the cane-brake, green and dank, That girdled his home by the Dacca tank.

He thought of his wife and his High School son, He thought—but abandoned the thought—of a gun

His sleep was broken by visions dread Of a shining Boh with a silver head.

He kept his counsel and went his way, And swindled the cartmen of half their pay.

And the months went on, as the worst must do, And the Boh returned to the raid anew.

But the Captain had quitted the long-drawn strife, And in far Simoorie had taken a wife;

And she was a damsel of delicate mould, With hair like the sunshine and heart of gold,

And little she knew the arms that embraced Had cloven a man from the brow to the waist:

And little she knew that the loving lips Had ordered a quivering life's eclipse,

Or the eye that lit at her lightest breath Had glared unawed in the Gates of Death.