The little brown face grinned delightedly.
"Me stay by master," he said. "All chaps go to bed. Mangwee keep watch with master."
"No, you don't," said Captain Ayres decidedly. "Mangwee go to bed with all chaps, or he get bamboo stick in the morning."
The little brown face clouded over.
"Master, the dacoits all round. Master keep me, I keep master."
He spoke very earnestly, and pointed vaguely beyond the tent, but Captain Ayres laughed.
"I wish the dacoits would come, old chap," he said; "but there's no fear. Off with you!"
The boy tumbled out of the tent again; and pulled down the curtain as he went, but Captain Ayres had plenty to tell his mother now. His pen flew over the paper.
"In one of our raids on a village last week, I found the prettiest brown boy in the world. His people are dacoits, and he thinks his father has been killed. He knows a funny sort of broken English, and he has devoted himself to me. He was nearly starving when we found him, and I had to carry him eighteen miles into camp. He never leaves me, and I have just had to chivy him off to sleep. He hates bed just as much as Polly and Margey do, but he goes much more obediently. It is such dull work! I wish these dacoits would come, and give us . . ."
He stopped abruptly, for a brown hand crept inside the curtain, and an anxious round face peered after it.