'"Will you redeem the bond?" asks the herald once more.
'"Then blood must be shed at your door, and the life forfeit paid at your threshold, so that the curse may alight upon you and your house."
'He draws the dagger from its sheath. He had not laid his hand upon its handle in the same manner that he would have laid it on the hilt of his sword, but the reverse way to that; he puts the palm of his hand under it and not over it, so he could best use it in the way he intended to use it--so could he best strike the blow he meant to strike.
'"Begone! Begone!" shouts Hurdeo Singh, waving him away with his hand.
'The people around stand fixed as statues, eyes straining, necks craning. The herald stretches his left arm behind his mother, and she, throwing open her _chudder_, leans back against it....
'The money-lender had given a sudden cry, stretched out his hand, uttered some words.
'When Hurdeo Singh had beheld the herald raise his right arm, his own had gone up with it, and from his mouth had come the cry, "Don't! Don't."
'But it was too late. The herald had raised his arm, turned round his head, and plunged the sharp stiletto into his mother's breast.'
It would be scarcely possible in an article that ranges over the light literature of Anglo-India to omit mentioning the name of Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who is the most prominent and by far the most popular of Anglo-Indian authors. Yet our reference to his writings must be very brief, since most of them lie beyond the scope of our present subject; for although Mr. Kipling's short stories are famous, and he is a consummate artist in black and white, yet in the complete edition of his volumes up to date there is, in fact, but one full-sized Indian novel, and for this he is only responsible in part. Nor, assuming that the Indian chapters of the _Naulakha_[14] may be ascribed to him, would it be fair criticism to treat them as good samples of his work, or as illustrating his distinctive genius. The attempt in this story to bring together West and East, and to strike bold contrasts by setting down a Yankee fresh from Colorado before the palace gate of a Maharaja in the sands of western Rajputana, is too daring a venture; and the plot's development, though here and there are some touches of true vision and some vigorous passages, labours under the weight of its extravagant improbability. The American's restless energy, brought face to face with Oriental immobility, expresses itself in the following way: