"How dare you! How dare you give it to the chota-sahib? How dare you!"
The man muttered something in broken English and Hindustani about a quail fight, and not knowing the bird was dying when the Mirza gave it; accompanying his excuses with glances of appeal to Prince Abool-Bukr, who, at Sonny's outburst, had paused close by. Kate's eyes, following the bearer's, met those bright, dark, cruel ones, and her wrath blazed out again. Her Hindustani, however, being unequal to a lecture on cruelty to animals, she had to be content with looks. The Prince returned them with an indifferent smile for a moment, then with a half-impatient shrug of his shoulders, he stepped forward, lifted the dying quail gingerly between finger and thumb, and flung it over the parapet into the river.
"Ab khutm piyâree tussulli rukhiye!" (Now is it finished, dear one; take comfort!) he said consolingly, looking at Sonny's golden curls. The liquid Urdu was sheer gibberish to the woman, but the child turning his head half-doubtfully, half-reassured, Abool-Bukr's face softened instantly.
"Mujhe muaâf. Murna sub ke hukk hai" (Excuse me. Death is the right of all), he said with a graceful salaam as he passed on.
So the water Captain Morecombe brought back was used for a different purpose than quenching pretended thirst; and the bringer, hearing Kate's version of the story, hastily asked Sonny--who by this time was holding out chubby hands cheerfully to be dried and prattling of dirty birdies--what the Prince had said. The child, puzzled for an instant, smiled broadly.
"He said it was deaded all light."
Kate shivered. The incident had touched her on the nerves, taking the color from the flowers, the brightness from the sunshine.
"Come and have a turn," suggested Captain Morecombe; "they have began dancing in the saloon. It will change the subject."
But as she took his arm, she said in rather a tremulous voice, "There is such a thing as a Dance of Death, though."
"My dear lady," he laughed, "it is a most excellent pastime. And one can dance anywhere, on the edge of a volcano even, if one doesn't smell brimstone."