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A wild scurry, in which the bonfire was scattered, a few remarks in forcible English, a whack which just missed the hindmost reveller, and the place became a deserted village. Next morning Sabz Ali came to me in a towering rage to report that the sweeper that unclean outcast had dared to say most opprobrious things to him, being inspired thereto by the devil and apple brandy.
The little stream which yesterday trickled by the camp is become a young river, and it is a perfect mystery how Sabz Ali manages to cook our food over a fire guarded from the full force of the rain by blankets propped up with sticks, and how, having cooked it, he can bring it, still hot, across the twenty yards of rain-swept space which intervenes between the cook-house and our tent.
At every couple of hundred yards the coolies would sit down in a bunch, groaning and crying, and nothing less than a push or a thump would induce them to move. We felt like slave-drivers, and indeed Sabz Ali and the shikari behaved as such, although their prods and objurgations were not so hurtful as they appeared, being somewhat after the fashion of the tale told by an idiot,
Ekkas, white-hooded, with jingling bells hung round the scraggy necks of their lean ponies; brown men clad in sort of night-shirts composed of mud-coloured rags; brown dogs, humpy cattle, and children innumerable, swarmed upon the causeway in ever-increasing density until we drew up at the custom-house, and the usual jabber took place among Sabz Ali, the driver, and the officials.
Sabz Ali having cooked the dinner, the cook-boat was laid alongside, and Sabz Ali, clambering in and out of the window, proceeded to serve the repast, a black paw, presumably belonging to Ayata, the kitchenmaid-man, appearing from time to time to retrieve the soiled plates or hand up the next course.
Sabz Ali, too, complains of fever, which is not surprising after the wetting and exposure of yesterday; and when a native gets "fever" he curls up and is fit for nothing, and won't try. The dâk bungalow stands on a little plateau overlooking the road and a swift river, whose tawny waves were loaded with mud washed from the hills by recent storms.
We are becoming well accustomed to sleeping in an Indian train, and Sabz Ali had our beds unrolled and our innumerable hand luggage stowed away in no time, including four bottles of soda-water, which he has carefully garnered in the washstand, and which no hints, however broad, will induce him to relinquish.
Nevertheless, the fire blazed royally, and we ate up all the old hen and called for more, and prepared to make a night of it until, about ten o'clock, our bearer Sabz Ali appeared, with a train of coolies carrying our bedding and the other contents of the derelict carriage.
We set out after breakfast, Jane perched on a pony which Sabz Ali had raised or stolen, Hesketh in the dandy, and I on foot. After a warm five miles' march we came upon signs of a block. Vehicles of many and strange sorts were drawn up in the shade of a chenar, under whose wide branches the Baines family was faring sumptuously on biscuits and brandy and water.
Charlotte had got home just before me, having seen nothing to shoot at. She, too, seemed anxious for tea! During the day Sabz Ali had been doing his level best to improve the position in our sleeping-tent.
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