I ventured a little bit along the road, too anxious
to remember, or, remembering, to care, that I had no lantern, and that
at any moment I might tread on a snake. I could only think of one
thing, and how often I pictured it! Mr. Royle coming back, and the
natives carrying someone--someone who didn't laugh any more. The odd
thing was I didn't seem to mind at all what happened to kind Mrs.
Royle. It was Boggley, and only Boggley, that mattered to me. Of
course nothing did happen to anyone. It isn't when one expects and
dreads it that tragedy comes. Tragedy comes quietly, swiftly. I
remember going to see a fisherman's widow in a little village on the
stormy east coast. She told me of her husband's death. "I had his tea
a' ready an' a bit buttered toast an' a kipper, but he never cam' in."
That was all--"He never cam' in."
When our wanderers returned they were rather amused than otherwise.
The horse had given trouble and ended by kicking the trap to pieces,
and they had to walk part of the way home. Quite simple, you see; but
the first opportunity I looked in a mirror to see if my hair had not
turned white in a single night, as men's have done through sudden
fear. It hadn't; but I did dream of a water-horse with "an awful
starin' white face."
This morning Mrs. Royle took me to the village to get some brass to
take home. The shop was a little hut with an earthen floor, a pair of
scales, and one shelf crowded with brass things, made, not for
the European market, but for the daily use of the people, such as
drinking-vessels--_lota_ is the pretty name--and big brass plates out
of which they eat their rice and _dhalbat_.
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