BYRAM AND GHOPAL 



AS they neared the town, Byram several 

 times pricked up his ears and lis- 

 tened. Finally he asked Ghopal if he did 

 not hear any sounds of distant revelry. 

 Ghopal had heard nothing, but ere long the 

 sound of tom-toms fell distinctly on his 

 ear. 



"Some wedding, perhaps," said Ghopal. 



"I think not," said Byram. "Do you 

 not see something like a cloud between us 

 and the town ?" 



"Yes, truly," said Ghopal, "and what is 

 more, it is advancing toward us. You are 

 right, O Byram. The tom-toms are not 

 being beaten for a wedding, but to drive off 

 the hosts of locusts that are come up over 

 the land. Here they come; we are among 

 the advanced guard of the destroyers al- 

 ready." 



As he spoke the locusts came flying 

 against our travelers. They alighted on 

 the fields on either side, they filled the air 

 as high as the eye could reach, obscuring 

 the daylight, while from far and near came 

 the clanging of the tom-toms, the shouting 

 of many voices raised in the vain hope of 

 preventing the locusts from alighting. Vain 

 hope indeed, for they were already weary 

 with their flight, and apparently incapable 

 of going further. Those that fell, soon cov- 

 ered every blade of the young crops; the 

 fields were alive with them, but the clouds 

 appeared no thinner. Far as the eye could 

 reach the air was filled with their swarms, 

 while crows and hawks and minas and 

 smaller birds flitted among them, gorging 

 themselves. 



" Say, Byram," said Ghopal, exultingly, 

 "these people do not appear very thankful 

 to Brahma for sending the locusts; but I 

 suppose they are blessings more or less 

 disguised ?" 



"A flight of locusts," said Byram, "is 



rarely welcomed by man, but their visitation 

 is not an unmixed evil." 



"So much I am willing to concede at the 

 outset," said Ghopal. "Creatures that cover 

 the ground so densely and clear the herbage 

 so effectually, must pay tithes with their 

 droppings; but the question between us, 

 now that the seed is sown and the crops 

 well above ground, is, " Does it benefit man 

 to have them consume them, as they are 

 doing?" 



"The Indus is a dangerous river," said 

 Byram; "many a village has been carried 

 away by it, but when we come to strike the 

 balance of the account, we must admit that 

 Sind and the Sindees owe everything to the 

 Indus; but Mora has arrived,* and we must 

 defer our dispute for the present." 



Scarcely had they entered the town before 

 they were recognized by a party of shop- 

 keepers and farmers who, to the number of 

 about fifty, were discussing the visitation. 



" Oh, Byram," said one of the shopkeep- 

 ers, " you have brought trouble with you 

 this time !" 



"How so?" said Byram. "Brahma sent 



*The Sindees, on reaching a town, always speak of the town 

 as having arrived. 



