About midnight a village policeman going his rounds heard their cries.  At first he paid no heed to them:  jackals swarmed and disturbed the night.  Again the anguished voices quivered in the air.  There was something human in the sound.  He stopped to listen.  The cries rose again.  He walked forward in their direction.  Clearer, as he advanced, shrilled the distressed voices, and he recognised they were those of a woman and a child.  He quickened his steps and hastened to the spot.  The light from his lantern revealed bow-ma and her son, clinging to each other and weeping piteously.

“Who are you?  What ails you?” he asked.  The distraught mother, unconscious of the flight of time, thinking him the heartless dacoit returned to kill her boy, fell at his feet in an agony of supplication:  “Spare my son.  Take my life instead.”

“I am a chowkidar (watchman).  What is up?” But so dulled were her ears with fear and grief that he was twice obliged to repeat his words.  When the joyful intelligence reached her brain she burst into tears.  “O! save my son.”  Then the consciousness that the danger was past reminded her of her own plight, and she sobbed:  “Give me something to wear.”

The policeman had noticed her semi-nude state.  Dropping, his pugree at her feet he turned away.  She shook out its many folds and draped it about her body.  Then she related what had befallen her and pointed towards the direction the thief had taken.

The policeman walked cautiously forward, his lantern raised in one hand and his lathi tightly grasped in the other.  A few yards ahead he came to an old brick kiln.  Here, prone among the broken bricks, lay the robber in greater straits than his victims.  A huge cobra was tightly coiled round his right arm, while on the left hung the saree and the jewels.  The rays of the lantern disturbed the snake.  With an angry hiss it uncoiled itself and disappeared.  The dacoit, more dead than alive from simple fear of the snake’s fatal sting, yielded himself a prisoner, and it was subsequently discovered that the whole gang, of whom he was a member, were licensed hackney drivers.

Saved by a Bear

The evening shadows and silence had settled on the river Hooghly as an old Brahman wended his way to one of the many ghats (landing places).

The dinghis—­little boats which ply backwards and forwards all day carrying passengers to and from Calcutta—­had all been made fast for the night.  Some of the boatmen were cooking their evening meal, while others sat about on the decks smoking and singing.  Many of the boats were wedged close together and drawn up on to the bank.

But one lay well in the water and some distance from its fellow-craft.  Its manjhi (headman) stood on the stern deck, binding together the mat roof of his boat.  His seemingly careless gaze took in the Brahman, about to descend the bank.  He noted that the old man carried a parcel, partially concealed in his chadar (scarf), and, from the manner in which he hugged it, the observer concluded it contained something valuable.  As the Brahman came nearer, the manjhi saw it was a bag of money.