“That’s the word,” burst out James. “Of course we pay for our chow. Where’s the chowkee? Tell him to get busy.”
“But,” apologized the babu, “this is a very jungly place and we have not proper food for Europeans.”
“Great dingoes!” shrieked the Australian. “European food? We haven’t had anything to eat for a day! Bring a pan of rice, or a raw turnip, or a fried snake—anything. Ring up the chowkee.”
“The other day,” said the babu dreamily, “there was a chicken in Thenganyenam; I shall send the cook to hunt him.”
A few minutes later we saw the population of Thenganyenam chasing the lone fowl. He was finally run to earth with a great hubbub, and put to death while the crowd looked on. After that all was quiet for so long a time that we became uneasy, wondering if some one else was enjoying our dinner. Finally, when our overgrown hunger had become very painful indeed, the chicken appeared before us as tongue-scorching curry in a generous setting of hard-boiled rice.
Meanwhile we had pulled off our water-soaked rags, rubbed down with a strip of canvas, and put on our extra garments. The change was most agreeable. It was not until then that we knew how useful those squares of oil-cloth were. They had kept our baggage dry. Supper over, we stretched out on the canvas cots and tried to sleep.
The swamps and streams through which we had plunged that day had swarmed with leeches, commonly called bloodsuckers. One of these had fastened itself in a vein of my right ankle. I could not pull it out. A tiny stream of blood trickled along my toes. When I awoke in the morning I seemed to be fastened to the cot. The blood, oozing out during the night, had grown hard, gluing my right leg to the canvas.
Before I had dressed, the Hindu cook and care-taker wandered into the room, and, catching sight of the long red stain, gave one shriek and tumbled out on to the veranda. James, who was sleeping in a room next to mine, was awakened by the scream, and, hearing the Hindustanee word for “blood,” sprang to his feet in the belief that I had been murdered while he slept. I was explaining the matter to him when the cook, looking very frightened, returned with the book in which we had written our names the night before. Waving his arm now at the book, now at the cot, he danced about us, screaming excitedly. We could not understand his chatter, so we stepped past him out to the veranda. The “manager” was just coming up the steps.
“Here, babu,” demanded James, “what’s wrong with our friend from the kitchen?”
The Hindu turned to the manager, talking so rapidly that he almost choked over his words. Tears were streaming down his yellow-brown cheeks.