'Will you promise me——'
'How dare you speak to me so?' cried the young fellow, lashing himself into a rage which he was far from feeling. 'Promise you, indeed! I will promise you nothing. Do you suppose that because I have accepted you as my counsellor, and listened to your advice, I intend to give myself up to you entirely? If you do, let me tell you that you are extraordinarily mistaken. I will do what I think right.'
'Yes, yes; so long as my lord does not run into danger!' cried Chunder Singh piteously.
'My dear friend,' said Tom, in his most English fashion, 'let me entreat you not to be a fool. When I say that I decline to be dictated to, that does not mean that I intend to assert myself by deliberately thrusting my head into a lion's mouth, or doing anything else of the same ridiculous nature. And now, for heaven's sake, go away! I like you too well, and I respect you too much, to wish to quarrel with you; but I tell you plainly that I am not quite answerable to myself to-night. If you continue to stand there looking at me in that absurdly piteous way I shall say or do something foolish.' Sighing deeply and making a respectful salutation, Chunder Singh, to whom this new attitude of his young master was deeply bewildering, not to say alarming, took his leave.
In the corridor he paused. Hoosanee was still with the rajah. There was no one else. The rest of the servants were scattered. Several of them had been told off to attend upon the new inmates of the palace. The corridor was empty and very silent. Between the entrance to the rajah's apartment and the staircase lay the mattress which Hoosanee had been formerly in the habit of using at night, and which on his return had been spread for him again. Chunder Singh sat down upon it, determining to remain where he was until the exit of Hoosanee, when he would confer with him on the new danger that seemed to threaten the State. He sat where he was for a long time, and at last, vigilant as he had determined to be, his eyes grew dim. Again and again he tried to arouse himself, and again and again he dropped off into a doze. He felt persuaded, however, as he asserted later, that, if the door of the rajah's apartment had opened once, he must have heard it. So in ineffectual attempts to keep on the alert the hours of the night passed by.
Towards morning, being now fully persuaded that, contrary to his usual custom, the rajah had kept his servant in his room, he fell into a deep sleep from which he was aroused finally by sounds of movement in the palace. Then, a little ashamed of his want of dignity, sleeping at his master's door—he, an old minister of the State, like a personal servant—he crept off to his own house.
[CHAPTER XXXI]
THE ENGLISH LADIES IN THE RAJAH'S PALACE
Chunder Singh had been about an hour in his house, which was situated only a few yards distant from the palace, whither, not feeling perfectly easy about his master, he was thinking of returning, when he heard a murmur as of many people running together in the market-square. He went out and saw a large crowd round his house. As soon as he appeared, its foremost members called out to him. 'Chunder Singh will tell us the truth,' they said. 'Yes, yes,' cried others; 'Chunder Singh has never deceived us.'