Part 14 (2/2)

”Gulab,--”

Barlow's voice was drowned by yells of terror in the outer room.

”Thieves! Thieves have broken in to rob, and they have stolen my lamp!

_Chowkidar, chowkidar_! wake, son of a pig!”

It was the bearer, who, suddenly wakened by some noise, had in the dark groped for his lamp and found it missing.

”Heavens!” the Captain exclaimed. ”Now the cook house will be empty--the servants will come!” He rubbed a hand perplexedly over his forehead. ”Quick, Gulab, you must hide!”

He swung open a wooden door between his room and a bedroom next.

Within he said: ”There's a bed, and you must sleep here till daylight, then I will have the _chowkidar_ take you to where you wish to go. You couldn't go in the dark anyway. Bar the door; you will be quite safe; don't be frightened.” He touched her cheek with his fingers: ”Salaam, little girl.” Then, going out, he opened the door leading to the room of clamour, exclaiming angrily, ”You fool, why do you scream in your dreams?”

”G.o.d be thanked! it is the Sahib.” The bearer flopped to his knees and put his hands in abas.e.m.e.nt upon his master's feet.

Jungwa had rushed into the room, staff in hand, at the outcry. Now he stood glowering indignantly upon the grovelling bearer.

”It is the opium, Sahib,” he declared; ”this fool spends all his time in the bazaar smoking with people of ill repute. If the Presence will but admonish him with the whip our slumbers will not again be disturbed.”

The bearer, running true to the tenets of native servants, put up the universal alibi--a flat denial.

”Sahib, you who are my father and my mother, be not angry, for I have not slept. I observed the Sahib pa.s.s, but as he spoke not, I thought he had matters of import upon his mind and wished not to be disturbed.”

”A liar--by Mother Gunga!” The _chowkidar_ prodded him in the ribs with the end of his staff, and turning in disgust, pa.s.sed out.

”Come, you fool!” Barlow commanded, returning to his room, and, sitting down wearily upon the bed, held up a leg.

The bearer knelt and in silence stripped the _putties_ from his master's limbs, unlaced the shoes, and pulled off the breeches.

When Barlow had slipped on the pyjamas handed him, he said: ”Tell the _chowkidar_ to come to me at his waking from the first call of the crows.”

CHAPTER XIII

An omen of dire import all thugs believe is to hear the cry of a kite between midnight and dawn; to hear it before midnight does not matter, for the sleeper in turning over smothers the impending disaster beneath his body. But Captain Barlow had put up no such defence if evil hung over him, for when the _chowkidar_ stood outside the door calling softly, ”Captain Sahib! Captain Sahib!” Barlow lay just as he had flopped on the bed, his tiredness having held him as one dead.

Gently the soft voice of the _chowkidar_ pulled him back out of his Nirvana of non-existence, and he called sleepily, ”What is it?”

”It is Jungwa,” the watchman answered, ”and I have received the Sahib's order to come at this hour.”

Then Barlow remembered. He swung his feet to the floor, saying, ”Come!”

When the watchman had walked out of his sandals to approach in his bare feet, the Captain said, ”Is your tongue still to remain in your mouth, Jungwa, or has it been made sacrifice to the knife for the sin of telling in the cookhouse tales of your Sahib and last night?”

”No, Sahib, I have not spoken. I am a Meena of the Ossary _jat_. In Jaipur we guard the treasury and the zenanna of the Raja, and it is our chief who puts the _tika_ upon the forehead of the Maharaja when he ascends to the throne. Think you, then, Sahib, that an Ossary would betray a trust?”

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