"I would I were an European," she answered me. "My feelings, perhaps, would be less acute, and I should be sitting over a bright fire. Oh, how loudly the heaven is speaking! Go home, Sahib, you will catch cold!"
"Why do _you_ not go home?" I asked. "You will see no one to-day. No--not even your beloved. I am the only being who will venture out in a storm like this; and I do so only for your sake."
"My heart is as hard as this rock," she said, flipping her finger against the granite, "to all except one being--a child. Oh, how the heaven is speaking, Sahib!"
"Do you not fear the lightning and the hail?" I asked her.
"I did once," she replied. "I trembled whenever it came near; but now, what does it signify? _Bidglee_ (lightning), come to me," she cried, beckoning to a streak of fluid which entered the ground within a hundred yards of us. "_Bidglee_, come here, and make a turquoise of my heart."
What pretty feet! She had kicked off her shoes, which were saturated and spoiled.
"Go home, Sahib" (such was the refrain of her conversation); "you will catch cold!"
By degrees I had an opportunity of seeing all her features. She was most beautiful, but had evidently passed the meridian of her charms. She could not have been less than twenty-four years of age. On the forefinger of her left hand she wore a ring of English manufacture, in which was set a red cornelian, whereon was engraved a crest--a stag's head.
I took her hand in mine, and said, "Where did you get this?" pointing to the ring.
She smiled and sighed, and then answered, "Jee (sir), it belonged to an Ameer (a great man)."
"No; not older than yourself. How the heaven is speaking!"
"You are very unkind thus to repulse my civility."
"It may be so; but my heart's blood is curdled."
I bade her farewell; and through the storm, which still raged, I went home and won my wager.
I could not rest that night. The beautiful face of the native woman haunted me. In vain I tried to sleep, and at last I arose from my bed, and joined a card-party, in the hope that the excitement of gambling would banish her from my brain. But to no purpose. I knew not what I was playing, and ere long I left off in disgust.
Almost every one who visits the Hills keeps a servant called a _tindal_. His duty is to look after the men who carry your janpan, to go errands, to keep up the fire, and to accompany you with a lantern when you go out after dark. These tindals, like the couriers on the Continent, are a peculiar race; and, generally speaking, are a very sharp, active, and courageous people. I summoned my tindal, and interrogated him about the native lady who had caused so much sensation in Mussoorie. The only information he could afford me was, that she had come from a village near Hurdwar; that she was rich, possessed of the most costly jewels, kept a number of servants, moved about in great state on the plains, and, for all he knew, she might be the wife or slave of some Rajah.