Page:The Poison Tree.djvu/233

Rh burst of sobbing: then went on into the house—not to Kunda Nandini, but to the darwans (gatekeepers), to whom she said—

"Come quickly; there is a thief in the garden."

Then Dobe, Chobe, Paure, and Teowari, taking thick bamboo sticks in their hands, started off for the flower-garden. Debendra, hearing from afar the sound of their clumsy, clattering shoes, and seeing their black, napkin-swathed chins, leaped from the summer-house and fled in haste. Teowari and Co. ran some distance, but they could not catch him; yet he did not get off scot-free. We cannot certainly say whether he tasted the bamboo, but we have heard that he was pursued by some very abusive terms from the mouths of the darwans; and that his servant, having had a little of his brandy, in gossip the next day with a female friend remarked—

"To-day, when I was rubbing the Babu with oil, I saw a bruise on his back."

Returning home, Debendra made two resolutions: the first, that while Hira remained he would never again enter the Datta house; the second, that he