Page:The Slave Girl of Agra.djvu/12

THE SLAVE GIRL OF AGRA with green rice, and darkened by a continuous line of those famous mango groves which still produce the finest fruit in the world. Before them swept the imperious river, and beyond it rose the jagged peaks of the Rajmahal Hills. Numberless cargo boats were moored for the night. They carried the rice and sugar and salt, the cotton goods and silk fabrics of Bengal to Northern India, or brought down the cereals of Behar, the brass ware or brocade of Benares, the richer manufactures of the imperial cities of the west. For the Ganges was the great highway of trade in India, and men still living can remember her broad breast covered with thousands of slow-moving but shapely boats sailing up and down the stream. Trade takes a swifter course by rail to-day, and travelling is quicker than in the days of boats and bullock carts. But life was perhaps more restful then, and men and women had more of repose in their hereditary crafts—more of the simple enjoyments of an Eastern life in their quiet villages.

In the dim light of the stars two boys were building houses of earth and sand and sticks on the river bank, and a slim, dark-eyed girl stood by, observant and silent. Night follows quickly on the heels of day in India, and within an hour after a brilliant sunset the shades of evening had closed. The neighbouring town of Birnagar was almost invisible, except as a dark line of mango groves, and a few lamps glimmered under the trees. The riverside formed a busier scene; boatmen sang after the labours of the day, and fire was lighted on every boat for the evening meal.

The two boys were of the same age, about fifteen, 10