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The memsahib had gone in the cart and the chota baba the Sonny Sahib had always had good milk and she had taken none of the memsahib's ornaments, only her little black book with the charm in it. 'The little baby. 'That is true talk, interposed Sunni, 'Tooni's words are all true. Here is the little black book. Colonel Starr had the face of a man in a dream, half conscious and trying to wake up.
So it was not until the evening, when he came back very hungry, hoping the horseman would be gone, that he heard Tooni's wonderful news. Before she gave him water or oil, or even a chupatty, Tooni told him, holding his hand in hers. 'The Maharajah has sent for you, O noonday kite; where have you been in the sun?
The old man listened to her for an hour, and waggled his beard, and said that he quite understood; it should be as she wished. But Sheik Uddin had never seen any English people, and did not understand at all. He accepted Tooni's theories, but he measured and cut according to his own. Sheik Uddin could not afford to suffer in his reputation for the foolish notions of a woman.
They say many curious things are in his house. Let us ride past it. In his whole life Sunni had never heard such an interesting piece of news before even Tooni's, about the Maharajah's horseman, was nothing to this. 'Why is he come? he asked, putting his little red Arab into a trot. 'To bring your gods to the Rajputs. 'I have no gods, declared Sunni. 'Kali is so ugly I have no heart for her.
Sonny Sahib ran after the horseman with all the other boys, until, to everybody's astonishment, he stopped with tremendous prancings at Tooni's mud doorstep, where she sat to watch him go by. Then Sonny Sahib slipped away. He was afraid he did not know of what. He ran half a mile beyond the village, and helped Sumpsi Din keep the parrots out of his father's millet crop all day long.
Tooni's mind did not even record the directions, but it managed to retain the words about going away in a boat, and as she stood twisting the bottle round and round in the folds of her ragged red petticoat it made a desperate effort to extract their meaning. 'There will be no more shooting, said the doctor again, 'and there is a man outside with a goat.
In Tooni's pocket a little black book swung to and fro; it was the memsahib's book; and in the beginning of the firing, before the fever came, Tooni had seen the memsahib reading it long and often. They had not been killed in consequence, Tooni thought; there must be a protecting charm in the little black book; so she slipped it into her pocket. They left the looking-glass behind.
Since the doctor-sahib was to pay, the doctor-sahib would arrange that good measure should be given in the matter of the milk. And upon second thought the doctor-sahib decided that precautions were necessary. He told the man with the goat, therefore, that when the ayah received two pounds of milk she would pay him the five rupees. As he put the money into Tooni's hand she stayed him gently.
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