“If I put on the uniform you have brought, it is accepting your proposal and promising to serve you.”
“No, I shall want a better promise than that, Gil. I shall wait. You do not know Ny Deen yet. Some day you will come to me and say ‘Yes. I know you now as a brave, good man, who is seeking to do what is right.’ You think of me now, and judge me by what savage men have done everywhere at a time when I only wished that they should fight as soldiers. When you know me well, you will place your sword at my service. I am going to wait.”
“Then leave me here,” I said eagerly.
“I cannot. You must come with me to-night; and I promise you that at present you shall only be my guest.”
“You promise this?” I said.
“I do. You do not wish for my guest to look—there as you do now?”
“No,” I said, for I felt that I must yield.
“Go, then, and come back, not as my officer, but as the friend in whom my people’s rajah delights.”
He held out his hand again, and weakly, or diplomatically, whichever it may have been, I grasped his hand, rose, and went into the outer tent, to find Salaman and one of my attendants patiently awaiting my arrival.