Perhaps Sonny baba took his advice yet once again, perhaps the quinine got a fair hold of the enemy at last. Certain it is that from the time Dhurm Singh commenced to bring the pills dhurm nâl, the ague began to abate. At the end of a week Sonny baba was eating "rose chicken" once more with appetite. That evening, as the sun was setting red over the thick brakes of sugar-cane, the old man sat pounding diligently with pestle and mortar while he intoned away at the Adhee Grunt'h--
"God asks no man of his birth,
He asks him what he has done,
Since all are the seed of God,
Lo! what is the world but clay,
Tho' the pots are of many moulds."
And Sonny baba lying out in the shade blissfully conscious that he was getting better, nay, that he was better, raised himself on one arm and looked over with moist eyes to the old man.
"What are you doing, Dhurm Singh?"
"This slave makes pills. The Huzoor hath eaten so many, and those of the dust-like one have given out also. Lo! I fill the bottles against the return of the Baba-sahib to his medicine chest."
"But, I say! are you sure you have made them right?"
"The Huzoor may rest satisfied. Five grains of the blessed medicine for the master, and the other as before. It is dhurm nâl, Huzoor."
"So you call it a blessed medicine now, Dhurm Singh?"
"Wherefore not, since the master is better?"