He went towards the palace, and Harry followed him with his eyes.
"It's nice," he thought, "to be able to order everything you want like that. To tell the people to bring round an elephant, just as I might give orders for a donkey. Well, it's just the same, only one's bigger than the other, and costs more to keep. It is nice, after all, to be a king or a prince. Phra says it isn't, though, and perhaps one might get as much fun out of a donkey, and if he kicked it wouldn't be so far to fall."
He turned suddenly, to find that the old hunter's eyes were fixed sharply upon him.
"Does the young Sahib feel any pain now from the snake-bite?"
Harry frowned at the allusion, but the question was so respectfully put that he replied quietly,—
"A good deal sometimes, Sree, but my arm is better."
"Be out in the sun all you can, Sahib, and let the hot light shine upon it to bring life and strength back to the blood."
Harry nodded.
"There is death in the serpent's poison, but life in the light of the sun, Sahib. Sree's heart was sore within him when he heard the bad tidings, for he feared it meant that the young Sahib's days were at an end."
"But you never came near me, Sree, while I was bad."