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'Between first and second cockcrow of the first night in May. 'Of what year? 'I do not know; but upon the hour that I cried first fell the great earthquake in Srinagar which is in Kashmir. This Kim had from the woman who took care of him, and she again from Kimball O'Hara. The earthquake had been felt in India, and for long stood a leading date in the Punjab. 'Ai! said a woman excitedly.
"Aye, aye," responded shepherd Eli, slowly wagging his head and drawing his sheepskin cloak about him. "Thou art always welcome, lad. As for sleep, never at cockcrow was I more wakeful than at this moment to-night. For there is something strange in the air, lad. The very dogs feel it. They lie quiet and still; they neither twist nor turn. Whether it be that friend or foe approaches, I know not.
By the time of their departing it was nearer to cockcrow than to midnight; and when, on the morrow, I went into the chamber in the morning, to look forth into the street, the sun was shining brightly in a blue sky. I minded me with silent thanksgiving of all the good cheer yestereve had brought us, and of the wisdom and faithfulness of our good friends.
There was no sign of Kim or the lama. 'Up! He stirred a sleeper. 'Whither went those who lay here last even the lama and the boy? Is aught missing? 'Nay, grunted the man, 'the old madman rose at second cockcrow saying he would go to Benares, and the young one led him away. 'The curse of Allah on all unbelievers! said Mahbub heartily, and climbed into his own stall, growling in his beard.
"The white Ma is welcome," he said. "She shall hear all we have to say before we fight. All the same we shall fight. Here is my son wounded by the enemy. We must wipe out the shame put on us. We must get even for this bad thing. Now Ma you may give my son your medicine. Then you must rest. Women, you take care of the white Ma. We will call her at cockcrow when we start."
To-morrow I shall be rich and, it may be, strong. If Kaid knew of this tonight, I should be a prisoner before cockcrow. What claims has a prisoner? Kaid would be in my brother's house at dawn, seizing all that is there and elsewhere, and I on my way to Fazougli, to be strangled or drowned." "O wise and far-seeing! Thine eye pierces the earth. What is there to do? What is my gain what thine?"
At cockcrow the stable boys were at work; at sunrise Bishop stalked into the stables, a muslin handkerchief in his hand, which he applied to the coats of the animals, and, if the slightest stain was perceptible upon the muslin, up went the luckless wights of the stableboys and punishment was administered instanter; for to the veteran Bishop, bred amid the iron discipline of European armies, mercy for anything like a breach of duty was altogether out of the question.
For the rest, she knew that after office- hours, she reigned supreme over all the office furniture, and over a locked-up iron room with three locks, against the door of which strong chamber the light porter laid his head every night, on a truckle bed, that disappeared at cockcrow.
'I will never leave your Royal Highness in the hour of danger, he declared, with tears, and John's reply was no less fervent. There was one house in the neighbourhood where the Prince could always count on a welcome whether he came at midnight, at cockcrow, or at noon, whether as a Prince on his way to win a crown or as a beggar with neither home nor hope.
He squinted up at the sky, delivering his confidence in slowly measured phrases, to wit; "Wouldn't give ten cents fer no man 'at 'll give up a gal 'less he 'd orter not fer nuthin' ner nobody." I was called out of bed at cockcrow in the morning. The baroness and a footman were at the door. "Ah, my captain, there is trouble," she whispered. "M. de Lambert has taken his daughters.
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