"Thou wouldst see a fair one, which is more than thou canst among thine own people."
"Peace! Peace!" cried the courtesan, smiling to see both men look round for a weapon. "I'll have no bloodshed here. Keep that for the future." She dwelt on the last word meaningly, and it seemed to have a soothing effect, for the sepoys contented themselves with scowls again.
"The future?" echoed a graybeard who had been drinking cinnamon tea calmly. "God knows there will be wars enough in it. Didst hear, Meean sahib? I have it on authority--that Jarn Larnce is to give Peshawur to Dost Mohammed and take Rajpootana instead. Take it as Oude was taken and Sambalpore, and Jhansi, and all the others."
"Even so," assented a quiet looking man in spectacles. "When the last Lât-sahib went, he got much praise for having taken five kingdoms and given them to the Queen. The new one was told he must give more. This begins it."
"Let us see what we Rajpoots say first," cried the corporal fiercely. "'Tis we have fought the Sirkar's battles, and we are not sheep to be driven against our own."
Gul-anâri leered admiringly at her new lover. "Nay! the Rajpoots are men! and 'twas his regiment, my masters, who refused to fight over the sea, saying it was not in the bond. Ay! and gained their point."
"That drop has gone over the sea itself," sneered a third soldier. "The bond is altered now. Go we must, or be dismissed. The Thakoor-jee would not be so bold now, I warrant."
The Rajpoot twirled his mustache to his very eyes and cocked his turban awry.
"Ay, would I! and more, if they dare touch our privilege."
Gul-anâri leered again, rousing the Pathan sergeant to mutter curses, and--as if to change the subject--cross over to the man in the corner, lay insolent hands on his shoulder, and shout a question in his ear. The man turned, met the arrogant eyes bent on him calmly, and with both hands salaamed profusely but slowly with a sort of measured rhythm. Apparently he had not caught the words and was deprecating impatience. His hands were fine hands, slender, well-shaped, and he wore a metal ring on the seal-finger. It caught the light as he salaamed.