"What have you there?"
"An officer, sahib, wounded," Akram Chunder, who had picked up a few words of English, replied.
"Where have you got him from?" the officer asked in Hindustani.
Akram could understand the question, but could not answer it in the same language, and answered him in Punjaubi.
"We brought him out from the jungle over there, sahib."
"I don't understand you," the officer muttered; and then aloud in Hindustani, "Come along with me to those lights, that is one of the hospitals."
They went with him to the door of one of the largest buildings in the village, and entered. The floor was covered with prostrate figures. Four or five surgeons with orderlies holding torches were engaged in bandaging, probing for bullets, or, in one case, in amputating.
"Doctor," the officer said, "here are two fellows who look like Sikhs, though I suppose they are not; they have got a wounded officer, but where they found him I have no idea. Do any of you speak Punjaubi? They may be able to tell us what those fellows over there are doing."
But none of the surgeons spoke the language.
"We will just see who the man is they have brought in," the officer, who was a colonel, said; "he seems dead by his attitude. Put him down there, men."