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Alas! the doolie chosen for him had in all probability carried a smallpox patient, for he was shortly afterwards seized with that dire disease, under which, already weakened by his severe wound, he succumbed, and the country lost one of the most gallant captains in the naval service.
The door shut, and I thanked Providence that I was to be left in peace. But I was curious to know where the doolies had gone. I got out of bed and looked into the darkness. There was never a sign of a doolie.
At first one hears, "Sahib, Sahib!" in a deprecating tone of voice, mindful of sudden wakings of former Sahibs, sticks, and consequent sore backs, then piu forte, "Sahib!" crescendo, "Sahib, Sahib!" and then at last, in a burst of harmony, "Sahib purana Baira kutch bukshish mil jawe?" and the miserable doolie traveller, who has been, probably, feigning sleep in sulky savageness for the last ten minutes, makes a sudden dive through the curtains with a stick, an exclamation is heard very like swearing, only in a foreign language, and the troop of applicants vanish like a shot, keeping up, however, a yelping of Sahibs, and Purana Bairas, and Bukshishs, until the new bearers get fairly under weigh, and have carried their loads beyond hearing.
"It is the nature of the water," l said, and calling back: "Strick, what's that grog-shop doing so close to the road? It's a temptation to any one's servants." "Dun'no," said a sleepy voice in the doolie. "This is Kennedy's district. 'Twasn't here in my time." "Truly the water smells bad," Adam went on. "I smelt it, but I did not get the mynah even for six annas.
"I halted the doolie to set the curtains, an' she rode by walkin'- pace, an' Love-o'-Women's eyes wint afther her as if he would fair haul her down from the saddle. "'Follow there, was all he sez, but I niver heard a man spake in that voice before or since, an' I knew by those two wan words an' the look in his face that she was Di'monds-an'-Pearls that he'd talked av in his disthresses.
This letter must begin in pencil, for Boggley has the only pen. By the bye, would you mind keeping my letters till I get home? I think it might be amusing to read them when my cold weather in India is a thing of the past. Behold us on the first stage of our wanderings! We left Takai on Wednesday, I in my old friend the doolie, Boggley on his bicycle.
That same evening after sunset, a hospital doolie was set down in the verandah, and from it emerged Paul Wyndham a long lean figure of a man, whose most notable features were deep steadfast eyes, neither blue nor grey; a mouth of extraordinary gentleness and capacity for endurance; and the grave quietness of movement and speech, that may mean power in perfect equilibrium or mere dulness.
Tea and toast, and most diminutive eggs, which we had to hold in our fingers as there were no egg-cups. Simultala was my destination, and about eleven o'clock we reached it. Underneath the trees a few yards away from the little station we found a bullock-cart, which the Russels had sent for my luggage, and a doolie for myself.
A doolie is a kind of string-bed hung on a pole, with a covering to keep off the sun. It is carried by four men, and two others run alongside to relieve their companions at intervals. I had sixteen miles to travel in this thing. I looked at Boggley very doubtfully, and he tried to encourage me. You will be there in no time."
Just when the reasons were drowsy with blood-sucking I heard the regular "Let-us-take-and-heave-him-over" grunt of doolie-bearers in the compound. First one doolie came in, then a second, and then a third. I heard the doolies dumped on the ground, and the shutter in front of my door shook. "That's some one trying to come in," I said.
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