Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 27, 2025
They waited there in the dimly lighted room for what seemed tike an age again; she, pale and tortured by weird imaginings; he, grim and bolt-upright like a statue of a warrior. Then sounds came from the stairs again and the Risaldar hurried to the door and opened it. In burst the Risaldar's half-brother, breathing heavily and bearing a load nearly as big as he was.
There Mahommed Gunga found him afterward and administered a thrashing not, as he was careful to explain, for disobedience, but for having dared to be amused at the Risaldar's discomfiture. But there was still one point that weighed heavily on Mahommed Gunga's mind as the servant shuffled off and left him alone face to face with Cunningham.
Leave the room leave me and my half-brother with this priest for five short minutes and we will coax from him the secret of some hiding-place where you may lie hid until I come!" "But you'll hurt him!" "Not if he speaks, and speaks the truth!" "Promise me!" "On those conditions yes!" "Where shall I go?" The Risaldar's eyes glanced toward the door of the inner room, but he hesitated. "Nay!
"What is that red glow on the skyline over yonder?" "A burning, heavenborn!" "A burning? What burning? Funeral pyres? It's very big for funeral pyres!" "Nay, heavenborn!" "What, then?" She was still unfrightened, unsuspicious of the untoward. The Risaldar's arrival on the scene had quite restored her confidence and she felt content to ride with him to Jundhra on the morrow.
What chance had the Risaldar an old man, however willing he might be to ride through a swarming countryside for thirty miles or more and bring back an escort? Why, even supposing Mohammed Khan had ridden off at once, he could scarcely be back again before the section! And what would have happened in the meantime? Supposing the Risaldar's sons and grandsons refused to obey him?
So Warrington sat back against the cushions until the guard at the barrack gate turned out to present arms to the risaldar's raised whip. As if he understood the requirements of the occasion without being told, the risaldar sent the horses up the drive at a hard gallop. It was rather more than half-way up the drive that Warrington spoke again. "Feel that, sir?" he asked.
And here, before them, stood Kharvani to the life! "What of Kharvani?" growled Mahommed Khan. "'A purblind fool, a sot and a Mohammedan," quoted the priest maliciously, "'how many be they, three or one?" The Risaldar's hand went to his scabbard. His sword licked out free and trembled like a tuning-fork. He flicked with his thumbnail at the blade and muttered: "Sharp! Sharp as death itself!"
"Could Kharvani but appear, could her worshipers but see Kharvani manifest, what would a lakh, two lakhs, a crore of rupees mean to me, the High Priest of her temple? I could give thee anything! The power over all India would be in my hands! Kharvani would but appear and say thus and thus, and thus would it be done!" The Risaldar's hand had risen to his mustache.
"My son!" wailed the High Priest. "Where is my son?" "Tell him, Suliman!" "Where I caught thee, thou idol-briber!" snarled the Risaldar's half-brother. "Where? In that den of stinks. Gagged and bound all this while?" "Ha! Gagged and bound and out of mischief where all priests and priests' sons ought to be!" laughed Mahommed Khan. "Farward! Farm twos Ter-r-r-ott!"
The High Priest instantly began to speak to Ruth, whispering to her hurriedly in Hindustanee, but she was too little acquainted with the language to understand him. "And I," said the Risaldar's half-brother suddenly, "am I of no further use?" "I had forgotten thee!" exclaimed the Risaldar. They spoke together quickly in their own language, drawing aside and muttering to each other.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking