The man was Shah Sujah's mouse. He stood as he had set the child down, obedient to Heaven knows what understanding of the little voice. Now he seemed to hear nothing as he looked serenely, almost brightly, at those three out of his large soft eyes.
"Ayah!" cried the mother, clasping her darling tighter as by instinct. "Who--what is he? Ask him--ask him about it all."
Not only the ayah, but many others, asked him, fruitlessly--people running in from the court-house close by, hearing the news of Sonny's safe return; wanderers coming in disheartened from the search. Finally, Sonny's father, with an odd catch in his voice. But there was no answer, and the child's tongue went no further than "Loths and loths to eat, an' loths an' loths of quilth."
"Loh!" said the ayah, indignantly. "He is nothing but a mouse--a janowar.[[8]] Give him a rupee, Mem sahiba, and let him go; if the Huzoor, indeed, will not hang him for stealing my king of kings."
"Don'th, l'ayah--them kitheth hurth.--O Mummie, don'th l'oo know he'th goth 'quilth,' l'ever tho many 'quilth?'"
"Can't you make out anything, dear?" asked Mummie, almost aggrievedly; it was dreadful to lose a whole long day of Sonny's life.
"No, dearest," replied her husband, meekly aware of the offence. "No more than you can make out what 'quilth' means. Except, of course, that the tahsildar tells me that he--the man or the mouse, as you please--has been begging right away to the river's meet and is now, no doubt, on his way back to the shrine. Possibly he will meet an agent at Mooltan; they are seldom later than this in calling in their itinerants. He must have been in the gardens, and either met the child after he had lost himself, or--or stole him. That is all, unless Sonny remembers something when he is less excited. At any rate, he brought him back, unharmed, and--and--I should like to reward him."
"Reward him! Why, of course we must reward him. Think--only think what might----" She paused, able to think, not to speak of it.
"Just so. But how? The tahsildar says he will put any money into his bag and never touch it. And--and it does seem mean to reward a man for saving your son's life with broken victuals."
There was no help for it, however; though, just for the sake of appearances and proprieties, they gave him five whole rupees for the bag. He slipped them into it as if they had been pice, took up his gourd and went away, his beggar's staff making little round holes in the dust as he walked down the petunia-edged path, serenely, as if nothing unusual had happened.