Directly after, a tall native in white came out, with his face convulsed and the blood streaming down one cheek from a cut on the left temple, and staining his white cotton garment; but as he came upon me, his countenance suddenly grew unnaturally calm, and he drew up on one side and saluted, as if nothing was the matter, though I could see that he was trembling like a leaf.
Discipline had already taught me that I had no right to interfere with the actions of my superior officers, but human nature had made me already resent the way in which overbearing Englishmen bullied and ill-used the patient, long-suffering natives; and as I had heard the sounds of abuse and blows coming across the compound, a curious sensation of shame and annoyance made me feel hot and uncomfortable; and now as I came suddenly face to face with the good-looking, dark-faced man, with his bleeding temple, I hurriedly drew out a clean white handkerchief, doubled it into a bandage, and signing to the man to bend down, tied it tightly, bandage fashion, over what was a very severe cut.
The man shrank from me for a moment, as if my action repelled him, but the next he had crossed his hands humbly over his breast, and bent forward.
The act on my part was very quickly done, and then he raised his head, and his eyes met mine with a look that I could not read, but I could see that his lips were quivering, and the side of his head left uncovered was full of lines.
The next moment I had remembered that I was an officer, and drew myself up stiffly.
“Is Lieutenant Barton in his rooms?” I said, in what I meant to be sharp, authoritative tones.
“Yes; what do you want?” came out through the window; and I stepped forward, catching one peculiar look from the injured man again, and noticing that the other syces salaamed to me as I passed out of the glare of sunshine, into the comparative darkness of a mat-hung passage, and from thence into a comfortable room well-furnished with cane chairs, gay Indian rugs, and curtains, and with a light table, on which stood a cigar-box, a bottle or two, and glasses. Between them lay a stout, silver-topped malacca cane, evidently the instrument with which the native groom had been chastised.
But the principal object in the room was a fair-haired, supercilious-looking young man of seven or eight and twenty, in the lightest of pyjamas, and with a scarlet sash about his waist.
He was lolling back in a reclining-chair as I entered, and he wrinkled his face, half-closing his eyes, and drawing his heavy moustache close up under his nose in a very unpleasant way, as he stared at me.
“Oh, you’re our new fire-eater,” he said, in a bantering tone. “I heard you had come while I was away. How are you? Sit down and have a cigar. Here, hi!”