Part 24 (1/2)
”Forget not the water for thy trooper, Ranjoor Singh!”
He looked up to see Yasht there was more devilment expressed in it, for all her loveliness, than in her voice that never quite lost its hint of laughter He did not answer, and the trap-door closed again
He knelt and began to grope through the dark on hands and knees, but gave that up presently because the dust froan to choke hiate hi; so he ainst the worst ene a little in the Sikh way, that does not reckon God to be far off at any time
Suddenly the trap-door opened, and the rats scaht and noise
”Thus is a soldier answered!” h
”Is the risaldar-major sahib thirsty?” wondered Yas water out of a brass ewer into a dish, and pouring it back again Theand the water splashed deliriously, but he was not very thirsty yet; he had been thirstier on parade a hundred times
When her head and shoulders darkened the aperture, he did not trouble this time to look at her
”Is it dark down there?” she asked him; but he did not answer
So she struck a match and lit a newspaper In adoard to him, and it was then that the smell of dust and kerosene entered his consciousness as pincers enter the flesh of men in torment He stood up with hands upstretched to catch the fire-caught it-bore it doard-and ss
”Still dark?” she said, looking through the aperture once h found his tongue and cursed her with a force and coave her to understand that the next fire she dropped on him should be allowed to work God's will and burn her-her, her rats, her cobras, and her cutthroats Two honest Sikhs, he swore, would die well to such an end
”Drop thy fire and I will fan the flame!” he vowed, and she believed him
”I will send my cobras down to keep the sahib coh proposed to take one danger at a time, and he was quite sure that she wanted him alive, not dead, for otherwise he would have been dead already He held his tongue and listened while she splashed the water
”Thy trooper is very thirsty, sahib!”
She was on a warmer scent now, for that squadron of his and the men of his squadron were the one love of his warrior life Some spirit of malice whispered her as h sahib has promised on his Sikh honor”
”Proested future possibilities instead of a grim present
”That he will do what is required of hih?”
”Aye! Will the sahib pay, or will he let the trooper parch?”
”Ask Jagut Singh! Go, ask him! Let it be as he answers!”