It was one of the public rest houses kept by the British government for sahibs traveling through the wilds. This one seemed to be deserted, for there were no servants about. We climbed the steps, and, settling ourselves in veranda chairs, stretched our weary legs and listened to the humming of countless insects. We might have fallen asleep where we were, had we not been hungry and choking with thirst.
Like every house in British India, the bungalow stood wide open. I rose and wandered through the building, lighting my way with matches and peering into every corner for a bottle of water or a sleeping servant. In each of the two bedrooms there were two canvas charpoys; in the main room a table littered with tattered books and magazine leaves in English; in the back room several pots and kettles. There was plenty of water also—a tubful of it in a closet opening out of one of the bedrooms. But who could say how many travel-stained sahibs had bathed in it?
I returned to the veranda, and we took to shouting our wants into the jungle. Only the jungle replied, and we climbed down the steps and went around the building, less in the hope of finding any one than to escape the temptation of the bath-tub. Behind the bungalow stood three ragged huts. The first was empty. In the second we found a snoring Hindu stretched on his back on the dirt floor, close to a dying fire of sticks.
We woke him. He sprang to his feet with a frightened “Acha sahib, pawnee hai,” and ran to fetch a chettie of water—not because we had asked for it, but because he well knew the first need of travelers in the tropics.
“Now we would eat, O chowkee dar,” said James in Hindustanee. “Julty karow” (“Hurry up”).
“Acha, sahib,” repeated the cook.
He tossed a few sticks on the fire, set a kettle over them, emptied into it the water from another chettie, and, catching up a blazing stick, trotted with a loose-kneed wabble to the third hut. There sounded one long-drawn squawk, a muffled cackling of hens, and the Hindu returned, holding a chicken by the head and swinging it round and round as he ran. Catching up a knife, he slashed the fowl from throat to tail, snatched off skin and feathers with a few skilful jerks, and in less than three minutes after his awakening our supper was cooking.
We returned to the veranda, followed by the chowkee dar, who lighted a crippled-looking lamp on the table within and trotted away. He came back soon after to clear away the plates and chicken-bones. After paying him the last of our coppers, we rolled our jackets and shoes into pillows, and turned in.
We slept an hour, perhaps, during the night. A flock of roosters crowed every time they saw a new-born star, and dozens of lizards made the night miserable. There must have been a whole army of these pests in the bungalow. They were great, green-eyed reptiles from six inches to a foot long. Almost before the light was blown out, one on the ceiling struck up his song; another on the wall beside me joined in; two more in a corner gave answering cry, and the night concert had begun:
She-kak! she-kak! she-kak!