"Here," said Peroo, "is my brother. He is even as myself. His character is mine. We are all water-carriers, and he has done the work for two days. I will also leave him my skin bag, so that the Presence may be sure it is clean. He is a Peroo also."
He might have been the Peroo so far as the Quartermaster's requirements went. So the original went home and the copy took his place; but not for the two months. The order for active service of which the Colonel had spoken came sooner than was expected, and Peroo, hearing of it, started back at once for the regiment. A "changeling" could pass muster in peace, but war required the reality; besides, the master would, no doubt, be released. He was surely too good fighting material to be left behind, Peroo told himself; yet there his hero was, lying in the dust of a bye-alley in the bazaar in a ragged bad-character suit, while the barrack squares were alive with men, not half so good to look at, talking, as the mules were laden, of the deeds they were to do!
The wrinkles on Peroo's forehead grew more like those of a monkey in arms than ever. This was indeed a tyranny! but at least the Presence could be moved out of the burning sun this time without, of necessity, getting him into more trouble. So a few friends were called, and together they carried George Afford into the windowless slip of a room which Peroo locked at four o'clock in the morning and unlocked at ten at night, but which, nevertheless, served him as a home. There was nothing in it save a string bed and a drinking vessel; for Peroo, after his kind, ate his food in the bazaar; but that for the present was all the Englishman required either. So there Peroo left him in the darkness and the cool, safe for the day.
But after that? The problem went with Peroo as he limped about filling the cook-room waterpots, for on the morrow he must be filling them on the first camping-ground, fifteen miles away from that slip of a room where the master lay. What would become of him then?
The sandy stretches in which the barracks stood were full of mules, camels, carts, and men of all arms belonging to the small picked force which was to march with the one solid regiment at dawn on their mission of punishment.
"Pâni (water)," shouted a perspiring artilleryman, grappling with a peculiarly obstinate mule, as Peroo went past with his skin bag. "Pâni, and bring a real jildi (quickness) along with it. W'ot! you ain't the drinkin'-water, ain't yer? W'ot's that to me? I ain't one o' yer bloomin' Brahmins; but I'll take it outside instead o' in, because of them black-silly's o' the doctor's. So turn on the hose, Johnnie; I'll show you how."
"'E knows all about it, you bet," put in one of the regiment cheerfully. "Wy, 'e's bin hydraulic engineer and waterworks combined to that pore chap as got the sack the other day--George Afford--"
"Sure it was a thriflin' mistake wid the prepositions his godfathers made when they named him; for it was on and not off-erd he was six days out of sivin," remarked a tall Irishman.
"You hold your jaw, Pat," interrupted another voice. "'E was a better chap nor most, w'en 'e wasn't on the lap; and, Lordy! 'e could fight when he 'ad the chanst--couldn't 'e, Waterworks? Just turn that hose o' yours my way a bit, will yer?"
"Huzoor," assented Peroo, deferentially; he understood enough to make the thought pass through his brain that it was a pity the master had not the chance. Perhaps the curve of water conveyed this to that other brain beneath the close, fair curls, whence the drops flew sparkling in the sunlight. At any rate, their owner went on in a softer tone--