Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 26, 2025
The 'rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and inside, as I hope and pray daily for the death I dread by night, sat Mrs. Keith-Wessington, handkerchief in hand, and golden head bowed on her breast, How long I stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused by my syce taking the Waler's bridle and asking whether I was ill. From the horrible to the commonplace is but a step.
I peer forward into the obscurity. My syce pats, and speaks soothingly to the trembling horse, while my peon with excited fingers fumbles at the straps of my gun-case. For a moment all is intensely still. I whisper to the boatmen to push out a little into the stream. Again the tigress calls, this time so close to us that we could almost fancy we could feel her breath. My gun is ready.
Just now a palkee-gharree, cheapest of one-horse vehicles, with but one half-naked syce running at the pony's head, and never a footman near, passes the spanking Arabs; the plain turban of a respectable accountant in the Honorable Company's coal office at Garden Reach shows between the Venetian slats of the little window, and lo! our fine Baboo steps out of his slippers, and standing barefoot in the common dust of Cossitollah, dust that has been churned by all the pigs'-feet that ply that promiscuous thoroughfare, humbly touches first the vulgar ground and then his elegant turban, murmuring a pious Namaskarum; for the respectable accountant in the Honorable Company's coal office is, like Mutty Loll, a Kooleen Brahmin, only a little more so.
He had this planted in his garden and carefully watered. It grew well and after a time it produced ripe fruit. One day Lita ordered his horse, and as it was being brought it broke loose and run away into the garden: as it ran under the bel tree one of the bel fruits fell on to the saddle and stayed there. When the syce caught the horse he saw this and took the fruit home with him.
But as she came to the further end she saw Badr al-Din Hasan and she said, "Dearling! Art thou still sitting here? By Allah I was wishing that thou wert my bridegroom or, at least, that thou and the hunchbacked horse-groom were partners in me." He replied, "O beautiful lady, how should the Syce have access to thee, and how should he share in thee with me?"
We managed to get the ponies loose in time, and the syce swam the whole lot of them off to the nearest rising ground. A goat or two, the chief goat-herd, the chief goat-herd's wife, and several of their babies came to anchorage in the verandah.
At first I thought that it was my servant waiting to take the horse, but a moment later I recognized Charlie Thurkow recognized him by his fair hair, for he was hatless. At the same time my syce roused himself from slumber in the shadow of an arch, and ran forward to my stirrup. "Come to the hospital!" said Thurkow, the moment I alighted. His voice was dull and unnatural.
The party from the yacht numbered eighteen; there were fifty Bedawi Arabs in attendance on a hundred camels; eight horses, Arabs or Somali ponies, each required a syce, while the sheikh who had brought the caravan from Pajura was overlord of a score of hangers-on who figured in his list as servants. A thin haze of dust rose as this regiment advanced.
Smaller carriages followed till you come down to victorias with perhaps just one syce. Then the Poona Horse, beautifully mounted, in dark blue, red, and gold, with drawn swords rode past at a very quick trot, now and then breaking into a canter with a fine jingle and dust that made almost the best part of the show. I can't say I enjoy this damp warm weather here.
Now and again I appealed passionately to the Terror in the 'rickshaw to bear witness to all I had said, and to release me from a torture that was killing me. As I talked I suppose I must have told Kitty of my old relations with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw her listen intently with white face and blazing eyes. "Thank you, Mr. Pansay," she said, "that's quite enough. Syce ghora láo."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking