re were boats, too, that came up behind me without sails,
burning continually, as the cotton-boats sometimes burn, but never
sinking."

"Ah!" said the Adjutant. "Boats like those come to Calcutta of the
South. They are tall and black, they beat up the water behind them with
a tail, and they----"

"Are thrice as big as my village. MY boats were low and white; they beat
up the water on either side of them and were no larger than the boats
of one who speaks truth should be. They made me very afraid, and I
left water and went back to this my river, hiding by day and walking
by night, when I could not find little streams to help me. I came to
my village again, but I did not hope to see any of my people there.
Yet they were ploughing and sowing and reaping, and going to and fro in
their fields, as quietly as their own cattle."

"Was there still good food in the river?" said the Jackal.

"More than I had any desire for. Even I--and I do not eat mud--even
I was tired, and, as I remember, a little frightened of this constant
coming down of the silent ones. I heard my people say in my village
that all the English were dead; but those that came, face down, with the
current were NOT English, as my people saw. Then my people said that it
was best to say nothing at all, but to pay the tax and plough the land.
After a long time the river cleared, and those that came down it had
been clearly drowned by the floods, as I could well see; and though it
was not so easy then to get food, I was heartily glad of it. A little
killing here and there is no bad thing--but even the Mugger is sometimes
satisfied, as the saying is."

"Marvellous! Most truly marvellous!" said the Jackal. "I am become fat
through merely hearing about so much good eating. And afterward what, if
it be permitted to ask, did the Protector of the Poor do?"

"I said to myself--and by the Right and Left of Gunga! I locked my jaws
on that vow--I said I would never go roving any more. So I lived by the
Ghaut, very close to my own people, and I watched over them year after
year; and they loved me so much that they threw marigold wreaths at my
head whenever they saw it lift. Yes, and my Fate has been very kind to
me, and the river is good enough to respect my poor and infirm presence;
only----"

"No one is all happy from his beak to his tail," said the Adjutant
sympathetically. "What does the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut need more?"

"That little white child which I did not ge