'And now we have walked a weary way,' said Kim. 'Surely we shall
soon come to a parao [a resting-place]. Shall we stay there? Look,
the sun is sloping.'

'Who will receive us this evening?'

'That is all one. This country is full of good folk. Besides' he
sunk his voice beneath a whisper - 'we have money.'

The crowd thickened as they neared the resting-place which marked
the end of their day's journey. A line of stalls selling very
simple food and tobacco, a stack of firewood, a police-station, a
well, a horse-trough, a few trees, and, under them, some trampled
ground dotted with the black ashes of old fires, are all that mark
a parao on the Grand Trunk; if you except the beggars and the crows
- both hungry.

By this time the sun was driving broad golden spokes through the
lower branches of the mango-trees; the parakeets and doves were
coming. home in their hundreds; the chattering, grey-backed Seven
Sisters, talking over the day's adventures, walked back and forth
in twos and threes almost under the feet of the travellers; and
shufflings and scufflings in the branches showed that the bats were
ready to go out on the night-picket. Swiftly the light gathered
itself together, painted for an instant the faces and the
cartwheels and the bullocks' horns as red as blood. Then the night
fell, changing the touch of the air, drawing a low, even haze, like
a gossamer veil of blue, across the face of the country, and
bringing out, keen and distinct, the smell of wood-smoke and cattle