"'That devil of yours is at it again,' he said, 'and I won't have it, that's all!'
"As he went off I followed, for I did not relish Graham's justice when it disabled the cook.
"But this time I owned that the brute deserved punishment, for a more forlorn little tragedy than that which was being enacted among the pots and pans I never saw.
"Mohubbut Khan, chief villain, was seated--naked to the waist, bald as to head, after the manner of native cooks at work, on a low reed stool, brandishing a knife in one hand, while the other held a skrawking leggy white cock.
"Exactly in front of him was a group more suggestive of monkeys than men. It consisted of a very old man, wizened, bandy-legged, bandy-armed, whose white teeth showed in animal perfection as he howled, and a child of the same build, clinging to him convulsively, all legs, and arms, and shrieks.
"Between them and the cook stood Graham. He was a big fellow; fair as you are. In fact you are rather like him. There was a moment's pause, during which the old anatomy's voice rose in plaintive howls of resignation.
"'Lo! sonling, be comforted. Death comes to all, even to white cocks. It is but a few years. And grand-dad will hatch another. It is a sacrifice. Sacrifice to the sahib logue who bring death as they choose!'
"Well, it turned out, of course, to be a case of wanton cruelty. It always is. For hopeless inability to be considerate commend me to a native jack-in-office. There were fifty other fowls in the neighbouring village, but nothing would serve the underling whose duty it was to collect supplies, but that this wretched child's pet should serve for the Huzoor's dinner. The old man's joy when it was released was purely pitiable. He would have reared another for his grandson, he asserted garrulously; ay! even to the hatching of an egg from the very beginning, with toil by day and night. But only the Great God knew if the child's heart would have gone out to the chick as it had to the cock, for the heart was capricious. It was not to be counted upon, since the Great God made some men, yea! even some Huzoors, different from others. He looked from Graham to me as he spoke, and somehow I felt small. So as Graham was evidently master of the situation, I slunk back to my work.
"There were sounds of woe thereinafter from the cook-room tent, and Graham himself supervised the dinner that night, in order, he explained somewhat apologetically, that I might not suffer from his conceptions of duty.
"It was two days after this, and we had shifted camp fifteen miles, when, having occasion to go into Graham's tent after dark, I stumbled over some one sitting among the corner tent-pegs. It was the grandpapa of the white cock, and he explained to me in his lingo--for he was one of the jungle people--that he had come in exchange for that precious bird. One life or another mattered little. Grim-sahib had spared the child's heart's joy, which was now living with him in the maternal mansion. There being, therefore, no necessity for the occupation of hatching eggs, he, Bunder--yea! of a surety, it was the same name as that of the monkey people--had come to do service to the Huzoors instead of the white cock.