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By Root 3001 0

where the light seemed harsher than in the north, and men, as though in compensation for the lack of colour in their surroundings, painted their houses blinding white or sugar-pink, and decorated their walls and gateways with gay murals of fighting elephants or legendary heroes. Even the horns of their cattle were often brightly tinted, and the country-women did not wear saris but favoured voluminous skirts in vivid tones of sapphire and scarlet, cerise, orange, grass-green and saffron, printed and bordered in black. With their tight, bright bodices and headscarves of strongly contrasting colours, they were as brilliant as a flock of macaws, and they walked like queens, balancing vast brass cooking pots, water chattis or heavy loads of fodder on their heads with graceful ease, and moving always to the clash and jingle of silver, since every ankle and wrist bore its load of bracelets.

‘Like dancing girls,’ sniffed Mahdoo, disapprovingly.

‘Like Houris,’* retorted Ash. ‘Like peonies, or Dutch tulips.’ The aridity of the landscape depressed him, but he approved of the gay garb of its women, and of the fact that this sandy and rock-strewn country was by no means as barren as it appeared at first sight, but supported more wild life than he had seen during all their days in the Punjab. Herds of black-buck and chinkara roamed the plain, and the scanty scrub seemed alive with partridge and quail and flocks of pigeons. And once, in the early dawn, he had seen a great cloud of sandgrouse that must have numbered many thousands, rising from a lonely pool of water in a treeless waste of sand. Apart from the beauty of these sights, it was a relief to realize that there would be no need for him to follow the example of such orthodox Hindus as Kaka-ji, and turn vegetarian.

A dâk-runner arrived in camp bearing a large packet of mail addressed to Captain Pelham-Martyn. Most of it was of little interest, and having skimmed through this dispiriting collection of waste paper and consigning it to its proper place, Ash turned gratefully to the only two items that interested him: a short letter from Zarin, and a much longer one from Wally, who was frankly envious and complained of the dullness of Rawalpindi and wished that he was in Ash's shoes.

‘I told you those girls were bound to be beautiful, but you wouldn't believe it,’ wrote Wally. ‘They're wasted on you!’ And then went on to belie his complaints by giving Ash a lyrical description of a Miss Laura Wendover, who unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) had turned out to be betrothed to a civil engineer. There was also a poem written to commemorate a fellow officer who had died of enteric, that began ‘Lo, e'en ere his day had reached full morn’, and ran to seven lengthy verses, each worse than the last.

Ash waded through the first two before crumpling it up and tossing it away, and as the wind caught the paper and carried it out of sight, wondered idly what a stranger, finding that effusion and unacquainted with Wally, would make of the poet. Any impressions gained from such turgid stuff would be nothing in the least like the writer, yet Wally's six-page letter conjured him up as though he were there in the flesh and talking aloud, and Ash laughed over it and re-read it, and for a moment almost wished himself back in Rawalpindi.

Zarin's letter, on the other hand, consisted of a single page and was a curious document. For one thing it had been written in English, which was surprising, as Zarin knew perfectly well that there was no longer any necessity for this, and Ash had received two letters from him while in Rawalpindi, both in Arabic script. This one like all the others had been dictated to a professional letter-writer, and apart from the usual flowery compliments and prayers for the recipient's health and prosperity, it contained only a few quite unimportant items of regimental news, and ended with the information that Zarin's mother was in excellent health and desired him to urge the Sahib to have a care for his own, and to take special precautions against such things as snakes, centipedes