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