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'Yes, said Wali Dad, 'it is curious to think that our common meeting-place should be here, in the house of a common how do you call her? He pointed with the pipe-mouth to Lalun. 'Lalun is nothing but Lalun, I said, and that was perfectly true. 'But if you took your place in the world, Wali Dad, and gave up dreaming dreams 'I might wear an English coat and trouser.
There was something very heavy at the end, and it swore in an unknown tongue as it kicked against the City wall. 'Pull, oh, pull! said Lalun at the last. A pair of brown hands grasped the window-sill and a venerable Muhammadan tumbled upon the floor, very much out of breath. His jaws were tied up, his turban had fallen over one eye, and he was dusty and angry.
Wali Dad was always mourning over something or other the country of which he despaired, or the creed in which he had lost faith, or the life of the English which he could by no means understand. Lalun never mourned. She played little songs on the sitar, and to hear her sing, 'O Peacock, cry again, was always a fresh pleasure.
'Thanks to your Government, all our heads are protected, and with the educational facilities at my command' his eyes twinkled wickedly 'I might be a distinguished member of the local administration. Perhaps, in time, I might even be a member of a Legislative Council. 'Don't speak English, said Lalun, bending over her sitar afresh.
I might be a leading Muhammadan pleader. I might be received even at the Commissioner's tennis-parties where the English stand on one side and the natives on the other, in order to promote social intercourse throughout the Empire. Heart's Heart," said he to Lalun quickly, "the Sahib says that I ought to quit you." "The Sahib is always talking stupid talk," returned Lalun, with a laugh.
When the news went abroad that Khem Singh had escaped from the Fort, I did not, since I was then living this story, not writing it, connect myself, or Lalun, or the fat gentleman with the gold pince-nez, with his disappearance.
Wali Dad was nearly as permanent a fixture as the chandelier. As I have said, he lay in the window-seat and meditated on Life and Death and Lalun specially Lalun. The feet of the young men of the City tended to her doorways and then retired, for Lalun was a particular maiden, slow of speech, reserved of mind, and not in the least inclined to orgies which were nearly certain to end in strife.
My companion mumbled and jabbered as we walked on until we were carried back by the crowd and had to force our way to the troops. I caught him by the wrist and felt a bangle there the iron bangle of the Sikhs but I had no suspicions, for Lalun had only ten minutes before put her arms round me.
Wali Dad seemed to be in a very bad temper. Lalun looked out of the window and smiled into the dust-haze. I went away thinking about Khem Singh who had once made history with a thousand followers, and would have been a princeling but for the power of the Supreme Government aforesaid.
In reality he was only a clean-bred young Muhammadan, with pencilled eye-brows, small-cut nostrils, little feet and hands, and a very tired look in his eyes. By virtue of his twenty-two years he had grown a neat black beard which he stroked with pride and kept delicately scented. His life seemed to be divided between borrowing books from me and making love to Lalun in the window-seat.
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