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King had to stop him, not that he feared trouble, for they did not seem to resent either abuse or cudgeling in the least and that in itself was food for thought; but broken shoulders are no use for carrying loads. Laughing as if the whole thing was the greatest joke imaginable, Rewa Gunga fell into stride beside King and led him away in the direction of some tents.
He knew that Rewa Gunga wished him to talk of Yasmini and to ask questions about her, and that if he succumbed to that temptation all his self- control would be cunningly sapped away from him until his secrets, and his very senses, belonged to some one else. "What is he doing here?" he insisted. "He? Oh, he does nothing. He waits," purred the Rangar.
HEMMED in amid the stifling stench and babel of the caravansary, secluded by the very denseness of the many-minded swarm, five other Rajputs and Mahommed Gunga all six, according to their turbans, followers of Islam discussed matters that appeared to bring them little satisfaction.
Mahommed Gunga soon became the bane of his existence. The veteran seemed in no hurry to go back to his estate that must have been in serious need of management by this time, but would ride off on mysterious errands and return with a dozen or more black-bearded horsemen each time.
Nobody seemed to be for India, except Mahommed Gunga; and he said little, but asked ever-repeated questions as he rode.
There was no one like Peroo, serang, to lash, and guy, and hold to control the donkey-engines, to hoist a fallen locomotive craftily out of the borrow-pit into which it had tumbled; to strip, and dive, if need be, to see how the concrete blocks round the piers stood the scouring of Mother Gunga, or to adventure up-stream on a monsoon night and report on the state of the embankment-facings.
"Gunga Govind Sing," says he, "is master of the country; he had made a great festival for the burial of his mother; all those of that caste ought to be invited to the funeral festival; he would have disgraced me forever, if I had not been invited to that funeral festival."
Mahommed Gunga removed his own great sabre and handed it to one of his own five whom he overtook; then he buckled on the sword of honor and spurred until he rode abreast of Cunningham, a hundred yards or more ahead of the procession. "Sahib," he asked, "did Byng-bahadur say a word or two about listening to me?" "He did. Why?" "Because I will now say things!"
He knew what "Cunnigan-bahadur" would have done. He swore by Cunnigan-bahadur. And the memory of that same dead, desperately honest Cunningham he swore that no personal profit or convenience or safety should be allowed to stand between him and what was honorable and right! Mahommed Gunga had no secrets from himself; nor lack of imagination.
No: they were turned out without any such examination; and when I come to inquire into the proceedings of Gunga Govind Sing's Committee, I do not find that the new guardians have brought to account one single shilling they received, appointed as they were by that council newly made to superintend all the affairs of the Rajah.
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