Jack Raymond smiled. Jân-Ali-shân was wisdom itself. So the further shadow was supplied with a cigar, while a comparatively reckless voice hummed cheerfully--
'Tobacco is an Indian weed,
Grows green at morn, cut down at eve;
Thus we decay, we are but clay,
Think of this when you smoke tobacco!'
'Seems to me, sir,' it broke off at last to say, 'that there's only us three to take count on, so to speak. Them pore things in there 'as sum-totalled up their little bills. An', as the minister's man said when they come worryin' round for a grave, an' 'e busy plantin' sprouts--"Corpses'll keep an' kebbiges won't!" so why not leave 'em comfortable for to-night? We don't want no crowd comin' round to see the place where we laid 'em, do we, sir? An' Madam Toosaw's ain't nothin' to bazaar folk for the chamber o' 'orrers if they get the chanst. Then as for 'im, pore devil, 'e must go to quarantine camp as a suspect anyhow, so it wouldn't make any odds to 'im, would it, sir? An' we could tell 'im to 'old 'is tongue or worse befall, couldn't we, sir? An' that 'ud tone down the colour a bit, as the sayin' is, more nor lettin' the police send round the town-crier.'
'How about Budlu?' asked Jack Raymond tentatively; but Jân-Ali-shân was ready for him.
'Give 'im in charge 'isself, as 'e ought ter be, for disreliction o' duty in allowin' ghosts. That 'ud stop 'is mouth, sir; special as 'e don't know nothin'.'
The simplicity of the plan was obvious. It would even, Jack Raymond felt, take the responsibility of informing the police off his shoulders. He need only give the stowaway in charge, then go round to the civil surgeon, tell him the truth, and leave him to decide whether or not to hush up the matter absolutely--as he could easily do by the aid of quicklime and a few stones.
'In that case,' he said, after a pause for deliberation, 'the sooner we move off from this particular place----'
'Just so, sir!' interrupted Jân-Ali-shân. 'Dro'r the enemy's fire h'off the weak spot. So, if you'll take 'im over to the general's 'ouse, an' settle 'is an' Budlu's 'ash when the perlice come, I'll 'ang round about them pore things inside, an' warble 'ymns an' psalms an' spiritooal songs till you've done the job. It won't 'urt 'em, sir,' he added apologetically, 'an' it'll kinder keep up my sperits.'
It appeared to do so, for when, a quarter of an hour afterwards Jack Raymond, after finishing his task, returned to that part of the garden on his way to the civil surgeon, he heard quite a cheerful version of 'Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket' coming from the camphor bush. And when, just as the sky was primrose with the first sunbeams, he returned once more to release Jân-Ali-shân from his voluntary lyke-wake, he found him seated on the plinth of the mutiny memorial going methodically through 'John Brown's body,' as sung by convivial parties, with the elision of a word at each verse.
It was near its end, so that only 'John' had to be vocalised when Jack Raymond came up; but the beating of the silent tune went on vigorously while he told Jân-Ali-shân that the civil surgeon had expressed his entire approval of the plan, which he characterised as a stroke of administrative genius!