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Scott spoke forcefully to Faiz Ullah and the two policemen, and bade them capture goats where they could find them. This they most joyfully did, for it was a recreation, and many ownerless goats were driven in. Once fed, the poor brutes were willing enough to follow the carts, and a few days' good food food such as human beings died for lack of set them in milk again.
"All the same, you're responsible," Jim added, a moment's silence. "Bless 'em!" said Mrs. Jim, sleepily. Before the stars paled, Scott, who slept in an empty cart, waked and went about his work in silence; it seemed at that hour unkind to rouse Faiz Ullah and the interpreter.
There were shrill lamentations through the camp when the elder children saw their nurse move off without them. Faiz Ullah unbent so far as to jest with the policemen, and Scott turned purple with shame because Hawkins, already in the saddle, roared. A child escaped from the care of Mrs. Jim, and, running like a rabbit, clung to Scott's boot, William pursuing with long, easy strides.
And suiting action to words Faiz Talab fired off his twenty rounds with great rapidity in the safest possible direction, and prayed God that he had not hit one of his own comrades. At the same time he added a perhaps equally potent supplication, to the effect that his comrades might not be so careless or inconsiderate in their turn as to shoot him.
The place was so retired and so well provided with storehouses, that I found there a greater appearance of security than in the open country or the escort offered by the Raja, as his men were subordinate to the same Prince as the people who composed the army of Sheikh Faiz Ulla, and were likely enough to abandon me or to join my enemies in overwhelming me.
"For two nights, Heaven-born, he was pagal" said Faiz Ullah. "Look at my nose, and consider the eye of the policeman. He beat us with his bound hands; but we sat upon him, Heaven-born, and though his words were tez, we sweated him. Heaven-born, never has been such a sweat! He is weaker now than a child; but the fever has gone out of him, by the grace of God.
He was Scott's successor another cog in the machinery, moved forward behind his fellow, whose services, as the official announcement ran, 'were placed at the disposal of the Madras Government for famine duty until further orders. Scott handed over the funds in his charge, showed him the coolest corner in the office, warned him against excess of zeal, and, as twilight fell, departed from the Club in a hired carriage, with his faithful body servant, Faiz Ullah, and a mound of disordered baggage atop, to catch the Southern Mail at the loopholed and bastioned railway-station.
"But I am no goatherd," said Faiz Ullah. "When we cross the Bias River again we will talk of izzat," Scott replied. "Till that day thou and the policemen shall be sweepers to the camp, if I give the order." "Thus, then, it is done," grunted Faiz Ullah, "if the Sahib will have it so"; and he showed how a goat should be milked, while Scott stood over him.
Riding at a foot-pace, Faiz Ullah by his stirrup, Scott came to William in the brown-calico riding-habit, sitting at the dining-tent door, her hands in her lap, white as ashes, thin and worn, with no lustre in her hair. There did not seem to be any Mrs. Jim on the horizon, and all that William could say was: "My word, how pulled down you look!" "I've had a touch of fever.
Faiz Ullah opined it was the will of God that these foreigners should die, and it remained only to give orders to burn the dead. None the less there was no reason why the Sahib should lack his comforts, and Faiz Ullah, a campaigner of experience, had picked up a few lean goats and had added them to the procession.
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