Bengal Dacoits and Tigers | Page 5

and turning on him said: "Now I can deal with you. I will fetch a brick from yonder kiln and pound the breath out of you," With these words he strode forward, tying the jewels in the saree as he went. Now her sorely-tried nerves gave way, and, distracted with grief, bow-ma caught her child in her arms, and their mingled cries rent the air. But the thief did not return.
About midnight a village policeman going his rounds heard their cries. At first he paid no heed to them: jackals swarmed and disturbed the night. Again the anguished voices quivered in the air. There was something human in the sound. He stopped to listen. The cries rose again. He walked forward in their direction. Clearer, as he advanced, shrilled the distressed voices, and he recognised they were those of a woman and a child. He quickened his steps and hastened to the spot. The light from his lantern revealed bow-ma and her son, clinging to each other and weeping piteously.
"Who are you? What ails you?" he asked. The distraught mother, unconscious of the flight of time, thinking him the heartless dacoit returned to kill her boy, fell at his feet in an agony of supplication: "Spare my son. Take my life instead."
"I am a chowkidar (watchman). What is up?" But so dulled were her ears with fear and grief that he was twice obliged to repeat his words. When the joyful intelligence reached her brain she burst into tears. "O! save my son." Then the consciousness that the danger was past reminded her of her own plight, and she sobbed: "Give me something to wear."
The policeman had noticed her semi-nude state. Dropping, his pugree at her feet he turned away. She shook out its many folds and draped it about her body. Then she related what had befallen her and pointed towards the direction the thief had taken.
The policeman walked cautiously forward, his lantern raised in one hand and his lathi tightly grasped in the other. A few yards ahead he came to an old brick kiln. Here, prone among the broken bricks, lay the robber in greater straits than his victims. A huge cobra was tightly coiled round his right arm, while on the left hung the saree and the jewels. The rays of the lantern disturbed the snake. With an angry hiss it uncoiled itself and disappeared. The dacoit, more dead than alive from simple fear of the snake's fatal sting, yielded himself a prisoner, and it was subsequently discovered that the whole gang, of whom he was a member, were licensed hackney drivers.

Saved by a Bear
The evening shadows and silence had settled on the river Hooghly as an old Brahman wended his way to one of the many ghats (landing places).
The dinghis--little boats which ply backwards and forwards all day carrying passengers to and from Calcutta--had all been made fast for the night. Some of the boatmen were cooking their evening meal, while others sat about on the decks smoking and singing. Many of the boats were wedged close together and drawn up on to the bank.
But one lay well in the water and some distance from its fellow-craft. Its manjhi (headman) stood on the stern deck, binding together the mat roof of his boat. His seemingly careless gaze took in the Brahman, about to descend the bank. He noted that the old man carried a parcel, partially concealed in his chadar (scarf), and, from the manner in which he hugged it, the observer concluded it contained something valuable. As the Brahman came nearer, the manjhi saw it was a bag of money.
The old man picked his way down the bank and called upon boat after boat to take him to a small village near Serampore, for in those days there was no railway. None were willing to go so far. Meanwhile a whispered consultation had taken place between the manjhi and dhars (oarsmen) of the furthest dinghi. When the Brahman finally accosted them, they first demurred and then, as though still reluctant, consented to hire their boat.
Just as they were pushing off, a man with a performing bear ran down the bank. "Where goest thou?" he asked.
"Serampore" answered the Brahman before the boatman could reply.
"My home is near by," the man remarked gladly, and jumped into the boat, pulling his bear after him.
The boatmen scowled angrily: "Get out, we go not so far." But he would not. The manjhi warned him that he and his bear would gain nothing by forcing themselves into the boat.
"These boatmen are queer customers," he laughingly remarked to the Brahman, and to them: "Gain nothing! Why! I will reach my home."
"So you say," they answered.
The bear-man wondered within himself at their unwillingness to have him as a passenger. He and the