“Threatening! Ingrate! Only think what a blessing their arrival will shed. You will hear all the latest ‘gup’ from Shâlalai, and have a couple of devoted poodles, all eagerness to frisk, and fetch and carry—wagging their tails for approving pats, and all that sort of thing. And you must be tired of this very quiet life, unrelieved save by a couple of old fogies like yours truly and Upward?”
“Ah, I’m tired of the ‘gup’ of Shâlalai. I’m not sure I’m not quite tired of soldiers.”
“That begins to look brisk for me, my dear girl, I being—bar Upward—nearly the only civilian in Baluchistan. The only flaw in this to me alluring vista now opened out is—how long will it last? First of all, sit down. There’s no fun in standing unnecessarily.”
She sat down on the boulder beside him, and began to play with the smoothness of the barrels of the gun, which leaned against the rock between them. It was early morning. These two had strolled off down the valley together directly after chota hazri—as they had taken to doing of late. A couple of brace of chikór lay on the ground at their feet, the smallness of the “bag” bearing out the accuracy of Campian’s prognostication as to the decadence of that form of sport. The sun, newly risen, was flooding the valley with a rush of golden ether; reddening the towering crags, touching, with a silver wand, the carpet of dewdrops in the valley bottom, and mist-hung spider webs which spanned the juniper boughs—while from many a slab-like cliff came the crowing of chikór, pretty, defiant in the safety of altitude—rejoicing in the newly-risen dawn.
Some fifty yards off, Bhallu Khan, having spread his chuddah on the ground, and put the shoes from off his feet—was devoutly performing the prescribed prostrations in the direction of the Holy City, repeating the while the aspirations and ascriptions wherewith the Faithful—good, bad and indifferent—are careful to hallow the opening of another day.
“You were asserting yourself tired of the garrison,” went on Campian. “Yes? And wherefore this—caprice, since but the other day you were sworn to the sabre?”
“Was I? Well perhaps I’ve changed my mind. I may do that, you know. But I don’t like any of those at Shâlalai. And—the nice ones are all married.”
This escaped her so spontaneously, so genuinely, that Campian burst out laughing.
“Oh that’s the grievance, is it?” he said. “And what about the others who are—not nice?”
“Oh, I just fool them. Some of them think they’re fooling me. I let it go far enough, and then they suddenly find out I’ve been fooling them. It’s rather a joke.”