"Huzoor!" The old arms were stiff in salute, and then the oldest voice struck up quaveringly. "Lo! sahibân! it is enough for us that we have done durshan ere death. It brings contentment, even though both sieges of Bhurtpore is denied to some of us."
As, led by Rex, they marched out to the verandah, the two officials looked at one another.
But they said nothing for a minute. Then John Carruthers burst out:
"Damn the cipher! I told you it wasn't safe. Look here, sir, we must keep this quiet for the time."
Horace Alexander nodded.
[THERE AROSE A MAN]
This was one of the many stories which Nathaniel James Craddock told me in the cab of his engine while we used to go up and down that ribbon of red brick metalling edged with steel which was slowly laying itself out over a wide sandy desert.
Some of these were tragic, some comic, some betwixt and between; but most of them were worth the re-telling, especially as told by him. But the discursiveness of his method does not lend itself to print, so they all suffer in the process; even though, as I write, I seem to hear the steady grind of the engine, to feel the fine fretting of a sand storm on my cheek, and see the clear blue eyes looking at me with a keenness which always came as a surprise out of that bleared dissipated face.
"It was 'arter I 'ad that peep o' the Noo Jerusalem, sir, at the bottom o' the King's Well, 'as I come upon pore old 'Oneyman. I was a bit on the loose, you see, sir; them sort o' peeps wakes up the spiritooal nater o' a man, an' it's heads I win, tails you lose, if 'e takes to prayers or to drink. I tuk to the latter"--here he gave a slight cough, and added gently--"more nor usual. An' so I come across 'Oneyman. 'E'd 'ad a peep o' hell, sir, for 'e'd seen 'is wife's dead body lyin' where he'd left 'er safe an' sound waitin' for 'er baby to be born in doo time." There was always a biblical twang about Craddock's recitations which gave them a mournfully dignified tone. "'E 'ad friends in 'igh places, sir, an' one o' them, w'en he come through 'is brain fever, made 'im Conservancy Inspector down Bandelkhand way. It wasn't the place for 'im. They was wot they call Suckties, sir, down there, though there was precious little o' the babe an' sucklin' about their methods, but contrariwise, battle an' murder an' sudden death. They was for ever killin' goats an' kids, an' smearin' ole Mother Kâli with blood--never knew such chaps for paintin' the town red! So the Khush-boo sahib,[[3]] as they call him in their topsy turvey way, since it weren't perfoom but real stinks down by them temple steps, couldn't never forget the sights he see in Mutiny time. When 'e was in 'is cups, 'e'd sit an' cry about it; for 'e was a little bit of a man, sir, the smallest man as ever I see, an' all wrinkled like an' wizened; just for all the world the same as the monkeys as used to come down in crowds on feast days, an' leg it with the orferings folk used to bring to ole Mother Kâli. That's 'ow 'Oneyman come on reduction, as the sayin' is; tho', pore chap, them as look on 'is face might a-seen that 'e wasn't for long; not even if they'd made 'im Guv'ner-General-in-Council; for what with--savin' your presence, sir--a galloping consumption, both o' drink an' lungs, 'e was wearin' away like snowdrifts in summer." Here Craddock paused to whistle a familiar tune. "Beg pardin, sir, but it comes home to me so, for he was awful fond of 'is wife. Well! whether it was 'is name--'Oneyman, you know, sir, being the God o' monkeys[[4]]--or whether it was 'is nater, he was uncommon kind to the bunder logue. Used to say they was the only Christians in the place, 'cos they wouldn't 'ave no meat offered to hidols, sir. An' it's true as gospel, sir, they wouldn't. You should a' seen them waitin' in the trees, and hover the arches an' crocketty things on the temples, while three or four smug Brahmins was going the rounds with a party o' country folk, full up o' sugar candies, an' parched rice, an' platters o' curds to leave at each 'oly spot. It was a rare sight; for, you see, the monkeys were 'oly too, an' the priests dursn't even 'eave a brick at 'em.
"They 'ad just to lump it when the beasts 'oofed away with all the best things afore their very eyes. An' 'Oneyman used to amoose himself of an evening by sittin' on the steps an' larfin' fit to split. I told 'im it weren't perlite; but there! it ain't no use talkin' to a man as has seen 'is wife lyin' dead.