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She fled to Merryon in horror, and he and the khitmutgar slew the creature. But Puck's nerves were on edge from that day forward. She went through agonies of cold fear whenever she was left alone, and she feverishly encouraged the subalterns to visit her during her husband's absence on duty.
"Trust me!" laughed Nick. There came a knock at the door, to which Kasur responded. It was Olga's ayah. A few whispered words passed between them, then the khitmutgar softly closed it and approached Nick. "Miss sahib is tired this morning, and cannot ride with the sahibs. She asks that you will go to her, sahib, before you leave." Nick glanced at Max. "You had better come too."
There was something strangely incongruous in this Oriental figure framed in the commonplace door-way of a third-rate suburban dwelling-house. "The Sahib awaits you," said he, and even as he spoke there came a high piping voice from some inner room. "Show them in to me, khitmutgar," it cried. "Show them straight in to me." The Story of the Bald-Headed Man
He lounged against the window while his host dressed. The presence of the stately khitmutgar who was assisting Nick was ignored by them both. "I can generally manage to help myself," observed Nick. Max's mouth took its most cynical downward curve. "You see, old chap, this chances to be one of the occasions on which you can't. It's my funeral, not yours." Nick sent a brief glance across.
The khitmutgar did not return, but he showed no sign of exasperation. His eyes stared gravely into space. There was not a shade of anxiety in them. And it was thus that Nina Perceval found him when at last she came lightly in from the veranda in answer to his message. She entered without the smallest hesitation, but with that regal air of hers before which men did involuntary homage.
The brief twilight came upon them just before they reached their destination, and when they stopped before the bungalow it was nearly dark. The stately khitmutgar was waiting for them, and helped Olga to descend. He stood by with massive patience while the Musgraves bade her farewell and drove away; then with extreme dignity he addressed her.
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.
There was no reply to her call, and she was about to repeat it when Kasur the khitmutgar came along the verandah behind her. "Miss sahib, Ratcliffe sahib has not yet come back from the city," he said. Olga turned in astonishment. "The city, Kasur! How long has he been there? When did he go?" The man looked at her with the deferential vagueness which only the Oriental can express.
But Merryon had already burst into the bungalow; so he resumed his patient watch on the veranda, wholly undisturbed, supremely patient. The khitmutgar came forward at his master's noisy entrance. There was a trace just the shadow of a suggestion of anxiety on his dignified face under the snow-white turban. He presented him with a note on a salver with a few murmured words and a deep salaam.
All he did when he found himself alone was to sit down and scribble a brief note. "Will you come to me now, or must I follow you to the world's end? One or the other it will surely be. Yours, PAT." This note he delivered to the khitmutgar, with orders to return to him with a reply. Then, with a certain massive patience, he resumed his cigar and settled himself to wait.
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