From the Five Rivers. Flora Annie Webster Steel

I.

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      Outside the village a man stood alone in the moonless night. Yet it was not dark; for in the unending depths of violet blue the stars hung many-hued and many-sized--each in their order, so clear, so bright, that the simile "as one star differeth from another in glory" stood out in all its vivid truth, undimmed by the mists of a Western atmosphere.

      The man, however, neither looked nor thought of the stars. He had seen them shine thus after the winter rains ever since he had been able to see, and his eyes were full of the shadowy stretch of level fields which seemed to rise towards the pale horizon. There was a fresh, damp smell in the air, and close to his feet some lighter shadows surrounded by darker ones showed that the recent rains had been heavy enough to leave fresh pools of water in the hollows whence the village had been dug--hollows like the skeleton at the feast, serving to remind the inhabitants that their origin was dust, their end the grave.

      Toil and moil flung their refuse into these as if in derision; the pitiless eastern rain washed the mud from wall and roof back to its birthplace; but year after year the antlike builders piled more mud over the ruins of the old, until the village, girt by its grave, grew dignified by age, and, gaining renewal from its own mortality, rose higher and higher above the surrounding plain.

      Such a treeless, formless plain, circled round by that fillet of paler sky where the stars shone dimly, like distant fire-flies. Not a landmark anywhere, save, behind the man, his own village. By day an ant-hill of low huts; in the soft darkness piled like a fort, lightless, soundless. He turned towards it, his eyes seeking a central block standing higher than the rest. It was his house; the house where he and his forebears for many a generation had been born; where he had stood by his father's death-bed and taken the reins of office from the dying hands; where he, too, hoped to die and pass the headship of the village to some stalwart son. And it was childless as yet. A curious thrill seemed to join heart and hand and brain in a trinity of skill and strength and love, for yonder in that dim house a woman was bringing a child into the world with pains beyond the primal curse; and he, the father, driven by a restlessness new to him, had wandered out into the night to seek patience in action. It could not be over yet; his mother had said it would be long, and the jackals had not yet given their second cry. He turned again to the fields.

      "The land is good," he murmured to himself, "the crop is good, and the rain is good. If only this be a son--"

      He drew a long breath that was half a sigh. A stir in the thorn enclosures where the cattle were folded for the night caught his practised ear, and he walked towards them, listening. A feeble bleat followed by a patter of feet made him push aside the rude hurdle barring the entrance. Among the crowding sheep and goats the first lamb of the season lay beside its mother, and his eyes lit up as he forced his way through the circle of uncertain elders to reach it. He was in luck to be there, else the first-fruits would have been dead by morning. He lifted the lamb gently, thinking the while that he must divide the flock ere another night, and so run no more risks. As he made his way back to the village with swinging strides the mother trotted after him, bleating, and the village dogs snuffed at his heels silently; they knew better than to bark at Gunesh Chund the head-man, tall and strong; looking all the taller by reason of his white turban and the lank folds of white drapery falling from his high shoulders--so tall,