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Updated: June 27, 2025
'Tooni, he said presently, 'without doubt I must sit down, and down he sat plumply, with his back against the wall, and his two small legs, in their very best striped cotton trousers, stretched out in front of him. As a matter of fact the Maharajah was asleep, and had forgotten all about Sonny Sahib in the hall of audience. It was Moti who reminded him, whispering in his ear until he awoke.
When she had finished, 'My soldiers were not there, he said thoughtfully, and with a shade of regret, which was not, I fear, at the thought of any good they might have done. Then he seemed to reflect, while Tooni stood before him with her hands joined together at the finger-tips and her head bowed. 'Then, without permission, you brought this child of outcasts into my State, said he at last.
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?
When he turned, none were speaking, but he recognised in the crowd the lowering indifferent face of a sepoy he knew one of the Nana Sahib's servants. Saying nothing, he fell back for Tooni and laid his hand upon her arm. And when the cart creaked out of the town into the crowded, dusty road that led down to the ghat, neither Abdul nor Tooni were in the riotous crowd that pressed along with it.
The Maharajah nodded, and this time Tooni lay down at the feet of the little prince. 'It is, said she, 'that I am a widow and old that I also may live in the farthest corner within the courtyard walls, with the boy. The Maharajah slipped the bag quickly into the pocket of his blue and yellow coat. 'It is a strange preference, he said, 'but the Mussulmans have no minds. It may be.
The little Maharajah laughed with delight, and drew from behind him a jingling bag. 'It is one hundred and fifty rupees, said the Maharajah. 'Give it to the woman, Moti. And the child held it out to her. Tooni looked at the bag, and then at Sonny Sahib, salaamed and hesitated. It was a provision for the rest of her life, as lives go in Rajputana.
That ruin had happened only an hour ago, with a terrible noise just outside, such a near and terrible noise that she, Tooni, had scrambled under the bed the mistress was lying on, and had hidden there until the doctor-sahib came and pulled her forth by the foot, and called her a poor sort of person.
He grumbled at that, but then he had grumbled steadily for two years, yet whenever Tooni proposed that they should go and find the captain-sahib, had said no, it was far, and he was an old man. Tooni should go when he was dead.
He did not even know of the Nana Sahib's order that the English were to be allowed to go away in boats; and this was remarkable, because he lived in the bazar outside, and in the bazar people generally know what is going to happen long before the sahibs who live in the tall white houses do. Tooni had only her own reflections.
So he made Sonny Sahib a pair of narrow striped calico trousers, and a long tight-fitting little coat with large bunches of pink roses on it, in what was the perfectly correct fashion for Mahomedan little boys of Rubbulgurh and Rajputana generally. Tooni paid Sheik Uddin tenpence, and admired her purchase very much.
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