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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"Plain Tales from the Hills"

The song is really pretty in
the Vernacular. In English you miss the wail of it. It runs
something like this:--

Alone upon the housetops, to the North
I turn and watch the lightning in the sky,--
The glamour of thy footsteps in the North,
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!
Below my feet the still bazar is laid
Far, far below the weary camels lie,--
The camels and the captives of thy raid,
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!
My father's wife is old and harsh with years,
And drudge of all my father's house am I.--
My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears,
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!

As the song stopped, Trejago stepped up under the grating and
whispered:--"I am here."
Bisesa was good to look upon.
That night was the beginning of many strange things, and of a double
life so wild that Trejago to-day sometimes wonders if it were not
all a dream. Bisesa or her old handmaiden who had thrown the
object-letter had detached the heavy grating from the brick-work of
the wall; so that the window slid inside, leaving only a square of
raw masonry, into which an active man might climb.


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