"It was safer, Huzoor. And at least he is fat and fresh. I gave him milk and chikken-brât.[[6]] And it was but a tiny morsel of opium just to make him quiet in the bundle."
Something in the quavering old voice made Kate cross quickly to the old woman and kneel beside her.
"You have done splendidly, ayah, no one could have done better!"
But the interest had died from the haggard face. "They said folk would be damned for it," she muttered half to herself, "but what could I do? The mem, my mem, said 'Take care of the boy.' So I gave him chikken-brât and milk." She paused, then looked up at Kate slowly. "But I can grind and spin no more, Huzoor. My life is done. So I have brought him here--and----" she paused again for breath.
"How did you find me out?" asked Kate, longing to give the old woman some restorative, yet not daring to offer it, for she was a Mussulmâni.
The old Mai reached out a skeleton of a hand, half-mechanically, to flick away a fluff of cotton wool from the still sleeping child's face. "It was the chikken-brât, Huzoor. The Huzoor will remember the old mess khânsaman? He did the pagul khanas [picnics] and nautches for the sahib logue. A big man with gold lace who made the cake at Christmas for the babas and set fire to plum-puddeens as no other khânsaman did. And made estârfit turkeys and sassets [stuffed turkey and sausages]--and----" She seemed afloat on a Bagh-o-bahâr list of comestibles, a dream of days when, as ayah, she had watched many a big dinner go from the cook room.
"But about the chikken-brât, ayah?" asked Kate with a lump in her throat; for the wasted figure babbling of old days was evidently close on death.
"Huzoor! Mungul Khân keeps life in him, these hard times, with the selling of eggs and fowls. So he, knowing me, said there was more chikken-brât than mine being made in the quarter. The Huzoor need have no fear. Mungul weeps every day and prays the sahibs may return, because his last month's account was not paid. A sweeper woman, he said, bought 'halflings' for an Afghan's bibi. As if an Afghani would use three halflings in one day! No one but a mem making chikken-brât would do that. So I watched and made sure, against this day; for I was old, and I had not spun or ground for long."
"You should have come before," said Kate gently. "You have worn yourself out."
The old woman stumbled to her feet. "My life was worn before, Huzoor. I am very old. I have put many boy-babies into the mem's arms to make them forget their pain, and taken them from them to put the flowers round them when they were dead. He was safer with me speaking our language; with you he may remember. But I shall be dead, so I can do no more."