The sherbet was presently brought to the major in a crystal jug upon a salver. He laid down his cigar and sipped the beverage with an air of enjoyment, yet lazily, as he did everything.
“I don’t see how I should get along without you, Karrah,” said the major. “And you know it too, you dog. I pay you big wages as it is, and now I want to know how much extra you will take, and forego your present practice of stealing. I think I’d better commute. Mrs. Archer says you are robbing us right and left. What do you say?”
The native, a slim, lithe, sinewy fellow with oblong black eyes, full of slyness and wickedness, a mouth indicative of a cruel disposition, and with movements like a cat, grinned at the major’s speech, but did not deny the charge. He had formerly been George Wynde’s servant and nurse, then Sir Harold’s attendant, and was now Major Archer’s most valued servant. He had made himself necessary to the officer by his knowledge of all his master’s requirements, and his exact fulfillment of them; by his skill in concocting sherbets and other cooling drinks; by his apparent devotion, and in other ways. Being so highly valued, he had every opportunity, in that loosely ordered household, of robbing his employer, and he was maintaining a steady drain upon the major’s purse which that officer now purposed to abolish.
“Come, you coppery rascal,” said the major good-humoredly, “what will you take to let the sugar and tea and coffee and the rest of the things alone, except when you find them on the table?”
“Karrah no make bargain, Sahib,” said the native, rolling up his eyes. “Karrah do better as it is.”
“No doubt; but I’m afraid, my worthy copper, that we shall have to part unless you and I can commute your stealings. Yesterday, for instance, I left five gold sovereigns in my other coat pocket, and last night when I happened to think of them and look for them they were gone. You took them—”
“No prove, Sahib—no prove!” said the native stolidly.
“I can prove that no one but you went into that room yesterday except me,” declared the major coolly. “You needn’t deny the theft, even if you purpose taking that trouble. I know you took the money. You are a thief, Karrah,” continued his master placidly and indolently, “and a liar, Karrah, and a scoundrel, Karrah; but your race is all tarred with the same stick, and I might as well have you as another. By the way my fine Buddhist, if that is what you are, did you use to steal right and left from Captain Wynde?”
“Karrah honest man; Karrah no steal, but Karrah always same.”
“Always the same! Poor George! Poor fellow! No wonder he died!” muttered the major compassionately. “It was a consumption of the lungs by disease, and a consumption of means by a scoundrel. And did you take in Sir Harold in the same way?”