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Updated: May 26, 2025
I was not anxious to assist Strickland in his work, but I took the cleaning-rod and waited in the dining-room, while Strickland brought a gardener's ladder from the verandah, and set it against the side of the room. The snake-tails drew themselves up and disappeared. We could hear the dry rushing scuttle of long bodies running over the baggy ceiling-cloth.
He put the cartridge into his pocket and glanced round for the second time. He could hear Mintie washing-up in the kitchen. Ransom was feeding his horses. Smoky took a cleaning-rod, ran it through the rifle, and examined the bit of cloth, which was wet and greasy. Then he replaced the rifle and went back to the table, where Ransom found him when he returned a few minutes later.
His question was merely the result of his own train of thought. He had not been speaking of any one in particular. "Who? Robb Chillingwood?" "Yes, of course. I've not heard of any one else's coming." "We've asked him for a fortnight to-day. Why?" Hervey ran the cleaning-rod through a couple of the chambers of the pistol before he spoke again.
'Give me a mahseer-rod, and we'll poke 'em down. 'They'll hide among the roof-beams, said Strickland. 'I can't stand snakes overhead. I'm going up into the roof. If I shake 'em down, stand by with a cleaning-rod and break their backs.
He seemed like a child, anxious to emphasize their dependence on his knowledge, and needing to be recompelled to each new thing they needed of him. He was perfectly content, though, to surrender when he felt the weight of a cleaning-rod on his anatomy, or something in the way of fire a match or cigarette for instance placed where he would get the most sensation from it.
"Good morrow, gentle Damocles," he remarked, entering the big verandah adown which the chubby boy pranced gleefully to meet his beloved friend, shouting a welcome, and brandishing a sword designed, and largely constructed, by himself from a cleaning-rod, a tobacco-tin lid, a piece of wood, card-board and wire. "Thalaam, Major Thahib," he said, flinging himself bodily upon that gentleman.
He gave Bobby the steel wire cleaning-rod, the rags, and the oil can, and showed him how to get all the powder residue from the rifling grooves in the barrel. "There," said Mr. Kincaid, folding back the half-seat, "climb in. That settles it for to-day." Bucephalus came to with reluctance. Going down hill he settled into a slow steady jog, which soon covered the distance to the Orde house.
"Knock it out with your cleaning-rod!" he yelled, and thrust another round into the breach of his own weapon, determined, if this were the end, to make a hard fight of the finish.
Notwithstanding, he plucked forth the cleaning-rod and forced it into one of the tubes. There was a slight resistance, and something fluttered to the floor and rolled about. The second tube was treated likewise, with the same result. Johann laughed silently. The fifty crowns were tangible; he could hear them jingling in his pocket, and a pretty music they made.
"What's that about a cleaning-rod?" asked Brown. "It was used on him to help him forget his vow of silence." "When?" "When you were up that tree, sahib!" "Have you been giving my man orders?" "Nay, sahib!" "How did he come to beat the fakir, then?" "We both arrived at the same conclusion at the same moment, and the fakir received the benefit!" "Who held him, you?" "Nay, sahib! God forbid!
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