Some fine pipal-trees grew in it though, one of them towered within three feet of the balcony, while the lower branches overspread the city wall.

All day long the green parrakeets flashed in and out of the pipal-trees, screaming and chattering, while the river wound blue among the yellow sands outside the wall; but to-night the only sound in them was the whispering of the leaves as the south wind passed, and both the river and the sands lay silver gray in the starlight.

Sunni, lying full length upon the balcony, listened with all his might.

From the courtyard, away round to the right where the stables were, came a pony's neigh, and Sunni, as he heard it once--twice--thrice--felt his eyes fill with tears.

It was the voice of his pony, of his 'Dhooplal,' his 'red sunlight,' and, he would never ride Dhooplal again.