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While she babbled she glanced wild-eyed around the long, low-ceilinged room. Ruth Bellairs looked down at her pityingly and went to the door herself and opened it. "Salaam, memsahib!" boomed a deep voice from the darkness. Ruth Bellairs started and the ayah screamed. "Who are you? Enter let me see you!"
'Memsahib ke kushi, he answers, salaaming like a sainted martyr, and taking the wind clean out o' me sails. But I'll wash yours meself; so you needn't fear to lend it." Then, becoming aware of Honor's red eyelids, she broke off short. "Why, Honor, me dear, it's the born fool I am to be chattering like a parrot when you're in trouble, by the looks of it."
"Yes, bwana." "Do you know the customs of askaris?" "Yes, bwana." "H'm," Kingozi commented in English, "nobody would guess it. Then understand this: You are headman of askaris. You take the orders: you report to me or the memsahib," he added, almost as an afterthought. "To-morrow morning fall in, and I will look at your guns. Bassi!" They filed away. Kingozi arose and returned the chair.
But will the memsahib of to-morrow take warning by the fate of Helen Peachey, who went out to India in all her bridal bravery, in all her youth and freshness? Will she escape exchanging the placidity of Fra Angelico's piping cherubim for the petulance and ring-shadowed eyes of the seasoned matron?
'And you, owls' brethren, he said, with sarcasm, addressing the first coolie, 'you have undertaken to carry these matter fifty-eight kos to Kalka, have you? 'Na, replied the coolie, stolidly, and spat. 'How else, then, is it to be taken? the driver cried, with anger in his argument. 'Behold the memsahib has ordered but one tonga, and a fool-thing of an ekka. Here is work for six tongas!
Rear rank 'bout-face!" barked the Risaldar, and there was another clattering and stamping on the stone floor as the panting chargers pranced into the fresh formation, back to back. "The memsahib!" growled Mahommed Khan. "Where is she?" "My son!" said the High Priest. "Bring me my son!" "A life for a life! Thy heavenborn first!" "Nay! Show me my son first!"
"I killed him, memsahib! I drove the shenzi spear through his back! I left him lying there! He is a god! He has come back from the dead!" "Fool!" she repeated, and swung her feet to the floor. "Stay here! Do not go out!" she commanded, when she had assumed her mosquito boots. She slipped out between the tent flaps. Torches were everywhere flickering about. She stopped one of the men as he passed.
Now the bwana has ordered to fall in. He wishes to see if any are missing. Go take your place, and answer to your name." "Oh, memsahib! Oh, memsahib!" the man was groaning. "Go, I say!" she cried. "And hold up your head. If this is suspected of you, you will surely die." Kingozi called the roll by the light of a replenished fire.
"Steps, now!" said the priest. "Have a care, now, for the lower ones are slippery." Ruth was regaining consciousness. She began to move and tried once or twice to speak. "Here, thou!" growled the Risaldar. "Thou art a younger man than I come back here. Help with the memsahib." The priest came back a step or two, but Suliman declined his aid, snarling vile insults at him.
An English lady having called, not long ago, at the house of a Hindoo lady, to enquire how she was, after an interesting event, and what was the result, received for answer: Alas, memsahib, nothing at all: a girl. Had she been a partisan of "woman's rights," she would probably never have recovered from the shock. A play on words, not transferable to English.
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