Page:Stories of Bengalee life - Prabhat Kumar Mukerji.pdf/182

170 another has come about. A Lepcha woman tried to kill your child; your servant preventing her, she stabbed him with her knife."

"Where is my servant?"

"I've sent him to the Ripon Hospital."

"Will he live?"

"It is to be feared he will not. She would have killed the child also, but that Khoda Bux, the constable, caught her."

Kumud Babu was overwhelmed. He thought—"It must be the woman of last night." He asked—"Where is the prisoner?"

The Daroga took Kumud Babu to the cell. He saw that it was indeed she, the beautiful hill woman. Kumud Babu's thoughts were paralysed: he could not conceive why she should feel such enmity against him. He asked the Daroga—"Do you know why she tried to kill my child? Has she confessed anything?"

"She says she lost her child on Tara Devi hill, that you brought it away and killed it. So she has tried to get her revenge."

"I killed her child! I!"

"I have learned all from your servant's deposition. See, Babu, they are a terrible race; how can they understand that you out of goodness brought away the child to preserve its life? They think you brought it away to slaughter it, and that you did so."