Part 32 (1/2)
”No, there is my house, that hut ahead, see.”
It has come in sight not a moment too soon, for Eleanor's arms are cramped and paralysed by supporting his body, her cheek pale with the heat, her heart fluttering spasmodically.
Only a few steps more, and she will have reached the haven of refuge.
How foolish it would be to fail now.
Through sheer force of will she reaches the hut, and as the boy cries ”Mother! mother!” she sinks exhausted in the entrance, still holding her suffering burden in her arms.
A woman rushes out, and takes her bleeding son from the stranger's embrace.
”He has been hurt,” explains Eleanor faintly. ”I carried him up the hill.”
”Oh, you good soul!” cries the grateful mother, feeling her son's arms and legs; ”and you're just as done up as can be. Come in, you poor young thing, and I'll give you a drink of Zoo to pull you round.”
”No, thank you, I don't want anything. I am better now; but let me help you with the boy. We had better get his things off, and wash the wounds.”
Together the two women tend the child. His leg is strained, not broken, and they put him to bed and watch him till he falls into a restless sleep.
Then their eyes meet, and the mother holds out her hand to Eleanor.
”G.o.d bless you!” she says; ”if anything had happened to Tombo we should have broken our hearts. He is our only child.”
Eleanor has recounted the history of the accident, leaving her share in the background, and making as light of it as possible.
She thinks, as she looks at the white woman, with her fair hair and sandy eyelashes, that something in the face brings an indistinct memory to her mind.
She glances curiously around the hut, adorned by the heads of animals.
”I must go,” she says; ”it is getting late.”
”The boy is sleeping. I will walk home with you.”
”No, stay by him. I shall be all right alone.”
”They have shot a tiger, and will be all drunk in the village for a week. You are different to me. I must come.”
”Thank you,” says Eleanor. ”I shall enjoy your companions.h.i.+p. May I ask your name?”
”Elizabeth Kachin. And yours?”
”Eleanor--Eleanor Quinton.”
Mrs. Roche's eyes droop as she turns them away from the sleeping face of that innocent child.
* Spirits.
CHAPTER XVI.