"If you were flat as a flounder, sahib."
"Can you see to the bottom of the hole?"
"No, sahib: it is dark, and goes deep."
"Next time you come, bring me a small marrowbone, not wider than your two fingers. Fill it with dried marrow, closely pressed together. Can you get any paper?"
"There is rice paper in kitchen, sahib."
"Bring me a piece, and something I can write with--a blackened stick, or a bit of charcoal. You will remember?"
"Like a book, sahib."
Fingering his beard meditatively, he walked away.
"What do you mean to do?" Jackson asked, when Mackenzie had repeated what Hamid had told him, and the instructions he had given.
"Put a wee note inside the bone, and get Hamid to fling it down the grating."