"My dear Sonny!" exclaimed his mother, looking with amused horror at the still, helpless little figure which Bisrâm had brought to her. "You wouldn't murder poor Gâmoo, surely!"
Sonny made faces over his quinine, as if that were a matter of much more importance.
"'Ess, I would," he said, with his mouth full of sweet biscuits. "I'd stwangle him, and then Mai Kâli would be pleased for a fousand years; and then I'd stwangle Ditto an' Peroo too; so she'd be pleased for a fousand fousand years--wouldn't she, Bisra?"
"My dear," said Sonny's mother, going back with a somewhat disturbed look to the room where the magistrate, Sonny's father, was busy over crabbed Sanskrit texts and bright-coloured talc pictures; for in his leisure hours he was compiling a Hindu Pantheon for the use of students, "I almost wish Bisrâm would not tell Sonny so many stories about the gods and goddesses. They do such horrid things."
The scholar, who in his heart nourished a hope that his son might in due time follow in his footsteps, and, perhaps, gain reputation where his father only found amusement, looked up from his books mildly.
"Gods and goddesses always do, my dear. Their morality seldom conforms to that which obtains among their worshippers. I intend to draw general attention to this anomaly. Besides, Sonny will have to learn these things anyhow when he begins Greek and Latin; he will in fact find this previous knowledge of great use. Kâli, for instance, is the terrific form of Durga who, of course, corresponds to the Juno of the Greeks and Romans and the Isis of Egypt. She is also the crescent-crowned Diana, and as Parbutt the Earth-mother Ceres. Under the name of Atma, again, she is 'goddess of souls governing the three worlds,' and so equivalent to Hecate Triformis--"
"Yes! my dear," interrupted his wife, meekly. "But for all that I don't want Sonny to talk of strangling the grooms; it really doesn't sound nice. However, as Bisrâm is eager, now Sonny is really recovering, to get away at once for his usual leave, I won't say anything to the child. He will forget while Bisrâm is away, and I will give orders that the latter is not to mention the subject on his return."
Bisrâm himself, receiving his pay and his orders ere starting on the yearly visit to his own country, which was the only portion of his life by day or night not absolutely--without any reservation whatever--at the disposal of his employers, fully acquiesced in the _mem-sahiba's_ dictum. The Noose of Kâli was scarcely a nice game for the little master; indeed his slave would never have introduced it under ordinary circumstances. But the _mem_ must remember that dreadful day when the Heart's-eye lay so still, caring for nothing, and the doctor-_sahib_ had said there was nothing to be done save to coax him into looking into the restless Face of Life instead of into the restful Face of Death. That was when he, Bisrâm, who knew, had spoken of the Noose; and, at least, it had done the little Shelter of the World no harm.