after the cramped space of a tent, a zinc bath wiggling on an uneven floor, and Autolycus fumbling vaguely among one's belongings. I am staying with G. in her sister's, Mrs. Townley's, very charming house. Boggley had to go off at once on another short tour, and I was only too pleased to come to this most comfortable habitation. It is nice to be with G. again, and she has lots to tell me about her doings—dances, garden-parties, picnics—all of which she has enjoyed thoroughly. All the same, I would rather have had my jungle experiences. She and her sister and brother-in-law laugh greatly at my tales. They regard me as an immense joke, I don't know why. I think myself I am rather a sensible, serious sort of person.
Mrs. Townley is the kindest woman. She has such a delightful way of making you feel that you are doing her the greatest favour by accepting her hospitality. I am not the only guest. A member of a nursing sisterhood—Sister Anna Margaret—is resting here for a few days. She wears clothes quite like a nun, but she is the cheeriest soul, with such contented eyes. She might be a girl, from the interest she takes in our doings and the way she laughs at our well-meant but not very witty fun.
Calcutta is very hot. The punkahs go all day—not the flapping kind of Mofussil punkahs, but things like bits of windmills fastened to poles. I never like to sit or sleep exactly underneath one, they look so insecure; besides, they make one so untidy. At a dinner-party it is really dreadful to have the things flap-flapping above one's carefully done hair. My hair needs no encouragement to get untidy, and I have quite an Ophelia-like air before we get to the fish. It is too hot to go out much except very early in the morning and again after tea. We read and write and work till luncheon, then go to bed and try to sleep till tea-time. We waken hot and very cross, and it is the horridest thing to get up and get into a dress that seems to fasten with millions of hooks and buttons. My old Bella is back with me, but she has found a mistress whose temper has shortened as the temperature has risen. Yesterday she fumbled so fastening my dress that I jumped round on her, stamped my foot, and said, "Bella, I shall slap you in a minute," She replied in such a reproving tone, "Oh! Missee Baba." Tea makes one feel better, and then there is tennis and a drive in the cool of the evening.
Mosquitoes are a great trial. They don't worry so much through the day, but at night—at night, when one with infinite care has examined the inside of the mosquito-curtains to make sure none are lurking, and then, satisfied, has dived into bed and tucked the curtain carefully round, and is just going off to sleep—buzz-z-z sounds the hateful thing, and all hope of a quiet night is gone. The other night I woke and found G. springing all over her bed like a kangaroo. At first I thought she had gone mad, dog-like, with the heat, but it turned out she was only stalking a mosquito.
Yesterday we all went—Mrs. Townley, Sister Anna Margaret, G., and I—to the Calcutta Zoo. We fed the monkeys with buns, watched the loathly little snakes crawl among the grass in their cages, and then G. began gratuitously to insult a large fierce tiger by poking at it with her sunshade.
It wasn't a kind thing to do, for it is surely bad enough to be caged without having a sunshade poked at one, and evidently the tiger thought so, for it lashed its tail and its roars shook the cage. We went home, and retribution followed swift and sure.
The first floor of the house consists of the drawing-room and two enormous bedrooms, one opening into the other, and both opening by several windows on to the verandah. Sister Anna Margaret is in one, G. and I in the other. We have two beds, but they are drawn close together and covered by a mosquito-curtain. Last night we went to bed in our usual gay spirits and fell asleep. It seemed to me that we were in the Zoo again and the tiger was fiercer than ever. It hit the bars with its great paw, and to my horror I saw that the bars were giving. I ran, but it was too late. The beast was out of the cage and coming after me with great bounds. My legs went round in circles and made no progress, as legs do in dreams; the tiger sprang—and I woke. At first I lay quiet, too thankful to find myself in bed to think about anything else; then I sniffed.
"Olivia?" said G. "Do you notice it?"
"What?" I asked.
"That awful smell of Zoo."
Of course that was it. I had been wondering what was the curious smell. My first thought—an awful one—was that the tiger had actually broken loose, tracked us home, and was now under the bed waiting to devour us. There was nothing to hinder it but a mosquito-curtain! How I accomplished it, paralysed as I was with terror, I know not, but I took a flying leap and landed on G., hitting her nose with my head and clutching wildly at her brawny arms, much developed with tennis, as my only refuge.
She was too terrified to resent my intrusion.
"What do you think it is?" she whispered. "Hu-s-h, speak low. Perhaps it doesn't know there's anyone in the room."
"It's the tiger from the Zoo," I hissed with conviction.
G. started visibly. "Rubbish," she said. "A tiger wouldn't get into a house. Ah—oh, listen!"
Distinctly we heard the fud of four feet going round the bed.
"Cry for help," said G.
"Sister!" we yelled together.
"Sister Anna!"
"Sister Anna Margaret!"
No answer. Sister Anna Margaret slept well.
"Sister!" said G, bitterly. "She's no sister in adversity."
"Get up, G.," I said encouragingly. "Get up and turn on the light. Perhaps it isn't a tiger, perhaps it's only a musk rat."
G. refused with some curtness. "Get up yourself," she added.
Again we shouted for Sister, with no result.
You have no idea how horrible it was to lie there in the darkness and listen to movements made by we knew not what. We felt bitterly towards Sister Anna, never thinking of what her feelings would be if she came confidingly to our help and was confronted by some fearsome animal.
"If only," said G., "we knew what time it was and when it will be light. I can't live like this long. Let go my arm, can't you?"
"I daren't," I said. "You're all I've got to hold on to."
We lay and listened, and we lay and listened, but the padding footsteps didn't come back; and then I suppose we must have fallen asleep, for the next thing we knew was that the ayahs were standing beside us with tea, and the miserable night was past.
G. and I looked at each other rather shamefacedly.
"Did we dream it?" I asked,
G. was rubbing her arm where I had gripped it.
"I didn't dream this, anyway," she said; "it's black and blue."
At breakfast we knew the bitterness of having our word doubted; no one believed our report. They laughed at us and said we had dreamt it, or that we had heard a mouse, and became so offensive in their unbelief that G. and I rose from the table in a dignified way, and went out to walk in the compound.
We are very busy collecting things to take home with us. (Did I tell you G.'s berth had been booked in the ship I sail in—the Socotra—it sails about the 23rd?) The chicon-wallah came this morning and spread his wares on the verandah floor—white rugs from Kashmir, embroidered gaily in red and green and blue; tinsel mats and table centres; pieces of soft bright silk; dainty white sewed work. We could hardly be dragged from the absorbing sight to the luncheon-table.
The
