United States or France ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"A trap and a tunnel." "Ah!" "There used to be one. A part of it caved in four or five years ago. It can be reexcavated in a night. The men who do that shall be my own. Your animals will be used. To Kathlyn Mem-sahib your pet leopards will be as play fellows. She has the eye, and the voice, and the touch. She shall be veiled to her eyes, with a bit of ocher on her forehead.
The chief called to his men to seize Ramabai and Pundita, when Kathlyn interfered. "Go, Ramabai; it is useless to fight against these men who mean all they say, and who are as cruel as the tiger himself." "It shall be as the Mem-sahib says," replied Ramabai resignedly. One morning Umballa entered the judgment hall of the palace, disturbed in mind.
The khitmutgar bent his stately person. "The mem-sahib went in haste," he said, "an hour before midnight. Your servant followed her to the dâk-bungalow to protect her from budmashes, but she dismissed me ere she entered in. Sahib, I could do no more." The man's eyes appealed for one instant, but fell the next before the dumb despair that looked out of his master's.
Very late one night there came a nervous knocking at Muriel's door, and springing up from her bed she came face to face with Daisy's ayah. The woman was grey with fright, and babbling incoherently. Something about "baba" and the "mem-sahib" Muriel caught and instantly guessed that the baby had been taken ill. She flung a wrap round her, and hastened to the nursery.
His present need to see and speak with Honor Desmond was an ultimate confession of that defeat. On reaching the bungalow, he was told that the Mem-sahib bad gone out with the Chota Sahib, but would doubtless be back before long, and had decided to await her return. During his ride with her that morning, he had not been able to bring himself to speak.
His mission had been fruitless, and yet when he rode away from "Heidelberg" in his heart he carried the flower of Hope. That same evening, as Sophy was sitting alone in the veranda after dinner, Lily ayah appeared, her fat arms uplifted in eloquent appeal. "Oh, missy you come with me I think our mem-sahib soon, soon die!" "Die!" exclaimed Sophy, springing to her feet.
Tigers lost their tenseness and looked straight into her eyes. A cheetah with cubs permitted her to touch the wabbly infants, whereas the keeper of this cage dared not go within a foot of it. By the time she reached the elephants a dozen keepers were following her, their eyes wide with awe. They had heard often of the Mem-sahib who calmed the wild ones, but they had not believed.
"A sepoy running amuck, I'm afraid," replied her friend. "He's shot someone ." She swung round, pistol raised. "Kohn hai? A man had come noiselessly on to the shadowed end of the verandah. "It is I, mem-sahib," answered Sher Afzul, her Punjaubi Mahommedan butler. He had been in her service for five years and was devoted to her and hers.
"Yes, somehow these drug people are too clever she has got cocaine. I think that water man bring it; anyhow, mem-sahib has taken one big, big dose, and lies as one gone from the world."
He looked at Peter with a level scrutiny for a few moments. Then: "It is enough," he said, with brief decision. "When I am not with your mem-sahib, I look to you to guard her." Peter made his stately salaam. Without further words, he conveyed the fact that without his permission no man might enter the room behind him and live.
Word Of The Day