“See,” they said among themselves. “Even to the infidel has the fame and holiness of the Syyed Aïn Asrâf reached.”
Even Umar Khan dare not openly resist the will of one so holy as the Syyed, and that as a matter of fact. But though baulked for the present, he turned sullenly away, meditating further mischief.
Chapter Nineteen.
Hopes and Fears.
A Regimental band was playing in the grounds of the Shâlalai Club, which institution constituted the ordinary afternoon resort of the society of the station.
A row of subalterns were roosting on the railing in front of the exclusively male department of the club, while their dogs fought and frisked, and snarled and panted, on the sward underneath. Every variety of dog—large and small, mongrel and thoroughbred—was there represented; indeed far more variety than might have been discerned among their owners, who, for the most part, were wonderfully alike; as to ideas, no less than in outward aspect.
As the afternoon wore on, more subs would ride up by twos and threes, on bicycles or in dog-carts—or even the homely necessary “gharri”—with more dogs, and after going inside for a “peg,” would emerge to swell the ranks of those already on the rail; their dogs the while engaging in combat with those already on the sward.
This rail-roost was a deeply cherished institution, which no consideration apparently was able to shake; whether the frowns or hints of superiors, or the attractions of the ornamental sex. This was scarcely surprising, for the ornamental sex as represented at Shâlalai was, with very little exception, singularly unornamental; which, though paradoxical, was none the less fact.