Dr. Craddock had been in cantonments when the rising took place. As soon as news of it reached his ears he mounted his buggy and hastened back into the city, against the advice of all his friends. At the gate he was met by a sepoy, who presented a loaded pistol at his head; but quick as thought the doctor lashed him across the face with his whip, and the man slunk howling away. Seeing that the street was full of people, Dr. Craddock jumped from his buggy and made his way by side streets towards his house. He had almost reached it when he was set upon by a group of ruffians, who hacked at him with their knives and left him for dead on the ground.
It happened that next day the doctor's house was granted by the king to a Pathan adventurer named Minghal Khan, who had just entered the city. He had come with high recommendations from the Maulavi Ahmed Ullah. Had he not earned Paradise by going to and fro through the land in the guise of a fakir and preparing the minds of the faithful for the great deliverance at hand? So worthy a missionary deserved well at the hands of Bahadur Shah, and the doddering old king at once made him a subahdar and gave him for residence the house which had just been purged of the defiling presence of an infidel Feringhi.
The first thing Minghal Khan did was to fling out of the house some of the European furniture, treading under heel the many dainty nick-nacks which had stood for so much to the memsahib as mementoes of home. Among the larger articles of furniture which he allowed to remain was a lofty almirah, on the shelves of which stood long arrays of bottles large and small, containing liquids and powders of various colours. Minghal had no respect for the infidel hakim's drugs, but the bottles made a pretty show and pleased his eye.
Those who had known Kaluja Dass as the faithful servant of Craddock Sahib might have been surprised at his remaining in the same house as khansaman to Minghal Khan. No doubt they were somewhat astonished at the change that came over the man. He was never tired of abusing his late master and all the Feringhi race, and though, not being a man of war, he did not actually fight against them, no man in Delhi cursed them more heartily or uttered devouter wishes for their extermination. It was partly this violence of language that induced Minghal Khan to engage him. That important personage at first swore that he would have none to serve him who had served the Feringhis; he even accused Kaluja of favouring the accursed infidels, and only the most vehement protestations of hatred—spittings, revilings, maledictions on countless foregone generations of the sons of perdition—prevented the Pathan from dealing with Kaluja in his haste as too many loyal natives had been dealt with. And then, when the man offered to serve the hazur without pay—so greatly did he honour this doughty enemy of the sahibs—Minghal was satisfied. A man must live, to be sure, but a khansaman had opportunities of squeezing the means of livelihood out of the purveyors honoured with his master's custom; and Minghal, being as arrant a brigand as ever went raiding on the border, was content to accept the service of an experienced domestic on such easy terms.
But Kaluja's place was not an easy one, and became more difficult as money ran short. This evening he had spent his last rupee in buying sweetmeats as garnishment for the meal. The names he bestowed inwardly on his master did not savour of respect. And when by and by Minghal came in with two friends of his kidney, and saw the meagreness of the repast, he cursed Kaluja as a dog and the son of a dog, and bade him go into the bazar and buy something more suited to the dignity, as to the appetite, of a friend of Bahadur Shah.
"Hazur, thy servant has not a pice," faltered the khansaman.
"Pig, wouldst thou answer me? Go, get thee some of the Feringhi's lumber that remains, and sell it. Wouldst thou keep my guests waiting? Quick, or by my father's beard I will hamstring thee."
Kaluja hastened from the room. During his absence Minghal inveighed against the parsimony of the king, which kept his faithful servants in such straits.
"Where is justice?" he cried. "Did he not command two days ago that twelve rupees' worth of sweetmeats should be bestowed upon those seventy sowars who came in from Alipur, with a tale—lies, by my beard!—that they had slain a hundred Feringhis and pursued a host for three full koss? And yesterday did he not give large gifts to the Gujars who stole forty camels from the Feringhis' camp? He is lavish to them, and yet will not part with a rupee to one who has journeyed in the heat of the day and faced death a hundred times in conveying the Maulavi's chapatis to the faithful!"
"The king has no treasury: how can he pay you?" said one of his friends.