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Have a drink, sir," he continued eagerly, pointing to a brass lotah and a cocoa-nut shell. "It's nice and fresh, sir. Mother Smithers only brought it up about two hours ago, because she said this was the hottest place in the station; and it's splendid stuff, sir. It's kept me awake many's the time, when I've felt as I must snooze."
As she raised herself, clutching at his arm, he became uncomfortably aware that her rags of clothing were probably verminous; that his chivalrous pity was tinged with repulsion. But pity prevailed. Supporting her to a neighbouring stall, he bought fruit, which she devoured like a wild thing. He begged a little milk in a lotah and gave her money for more.
There he came upon the Doctor busy over one poor wounded fellow whose head was resting upon the arm of a kneeling woman, who held a sponge in the hand at liberty, while a great brass lotah of water was at her side. "Very useful with basin and sponge," said Archie to himself, as he smiled grimly. "Can I do anything for you, Doctor?" he said. "Not unless you have come to help, my lad."
Tchoop tossed two of them from the house-top when no dandy hurkaru from the Mint was below to soften the fall; the old adjutant-bird, that for three years has stood on one leg on the Parsee's godown, gobbled up another as it lay choked in the south veranda; while the dismayed sirdar found the head of a fourth jammed inextricably in the neck of his sacred lotah, wherewith he performs his pious ablutions every morning at the ghaut.
Each person has his own lotah, a brass drinking vessel, and when all have eaten they again wash their hands, rinse out their mouths, and don their gayest apparel. The gentlemen in the bungalow now get word that the evening's festivities are about to commence.
Besides your own dhye, brought from Calcutta, there is not another wet-nurse to be had, for love or money. Immediately Dhye strikes for higher wages. The Baba Sahib, she says, has defiled her rice; yesterday he put his foot into her curry; to-day he washes the monkey's tail in her consecrated lotah.
"Oh, yes, yes, Joe dear!" she cried, hurrying to fetch her lotah and sponge; while the Doctor came up from the other side, frowning severely, and then making a dash to catch the unhappy woman and save her from falling, for poor Mrs Smithers, the strong and never-tiring, had fainted dead away for the first time in her life.
At that moment a wild cry of joy rang out, and Joe Smithers's wife, who had dropped a great brass lotah of clear, cold water which she had been to fetch from the Doctor's well, hurried in to announce that the commanding officer was down, and had brought the Doctor with his wife to attend to their brave old friend.
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