Transcriber's Notes:

1. Page scan source:

http://books.google.com/books?id=uj6lOyePLCYC
(Harvard University)

2. "a" with a macron above by [=a] or font face="Courier New" 257;

In the Guardianship of God

In the Guardianship

of God

BY

FLORA ANNIE STEEL

AUTHOR OF "ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS," "VOICES OF
THE NIGHT," "HOSTS OF THE LORD," ETC.

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.

1903

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1908,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up, electrotyped, and published May, 1903.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

CONTENTS

In the Guardianship of God.

A Bad-character Suit.

Fire and Ice.

The Shâhbâsh Wallah.

The Most Nailing Bad Shot in Creation.

The Reformer's Wife.

The Squaring of the Gods.

The Keeper of the Pass.

The Perfume of the Rose.

Little Henry and his Bearer.

The Hall of Audience.

In a Fog.

Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh.

Surâbhi.

On the Old Salt Road.

The Doll-maker.

The Skeleton Tree.

IN THE GUARDIANSHIP OF GOD

"Dittu Sansi, aged twenty-one, theft, six months," read out the overseer of the gaol, who was introducing a batch of new arrivals to the doctor in charge of a large gaol in the Upper Provinces of India. It was early morning. Outside the high mud walls, which looked like putty and felt like rock, the dew was frosting the grass in the garden where a few favoured criminals were doing the work of oxen for the well-wheel, and turning the runnels of fresh water to the patches of spinach and onion. But here, inside the gaol square, everything had the parched, arid look of sun-baked mud. Not a speck was to be seen anywhere; the very prisoners themselves, standing in a long line awaiting inspection, with their dust-coloured blankets folded upon the ground in front of them, looked like darker clay images waiting to be put on their pedestals. There was a touch of colour, however, close to the arched gateway. First, a red-turbaned warder or two, guarding the wicket; then half-a-dozen constables in yellow trousers, and a deputy-inspector of police smart in silver laces and fringes; finally the gaol darogah, or overseer, a stoutish, good-looking Mahomedan with a tendency to burst out, wherever it was possible, into gay muslin, and decorate the edges of his regulation white raiment with fine stitchings. These, with a nondescript group fresh from the lock-up, were gathered about the plain deal table set in full sunlight where the Doctor sate, ticking off each arrival on the roster. He matched the gaol, being dressed from head to foot in dust-coloured drill, with a wide pith hat which might have been carved out of the putty walls.

"All right, Darogah," he said with a yawn. "Number five hundred and seven. Go on,--what's the matter?"

Shurruf Deen, the Overseer, was looking intently at the paper in his hand, and the rich brown of his complacent face seemed to have faded a little. "Nothing, Huzoor," he replied glibly enough, though a quick observer might have seen the muscles of his brown throat labouring over the syllables. "The list is badly written, in the broken character. Thou