To a girl of her temperament inaction was the least endurable of evils. Now that the shock of Malcolm’s departure had passed she longed to seek oblivion in work, while existence in that stifling underground atmosphere, with its dense crowd of heart-broken women and complaining children, was almost intolerable.
In defiance of orders—of which, however, she was then ignorant—she went to the ground floor. Passing out into the darkness she crossed an open space to the hospital, and it chanced that the first person she encountered was Chumru, Malcolm’s bearer.
The man’s grim features changed their habitual scowl to a demoniac grin when he saw her.
“Ohé, miss-sahib,” he cried, “this meeting is my good fortune, for surely you can tell me where my sahib is?”
Winifred was not yet well versed in Hindustani, but she caught some of the words, and the contortions of Chumru’s expressive countenance were familiar to her, as she had laughed many a time at Malcolm’s recitals of his ill-favored servant’s undeserved repute as a villain of parts.
“Your sahib is gone to Allahabad,” she managed to say before the thought came tardily that perhaps it was not wise to make known the Chief Commissioner’s behests in this manner.
“To Illah-hábàd! Shade of Mahomet, how can he go that far without me?” exclaimed Chumru. “Who will cook his food and brush his clothes? Who will see to it that he is not robbed on the road by every thief that ever reared a chicken or milked a cow? I feared that some evil thing had befallen him, but this is worse than aught that entered my head.”
All this was lost on Winifred. She imagined that the native was bewailing his master’s certain death in striving to carry out a desperate mission, whereas he was really thinking that the most disturbing element about the sahib’s journey was his own absence.
Seeing the distress in her face, Chumru was sure that she sympathized with his views.
“Never mind, miss-sahib,” said he confidentially, “I will slip away now, steal a horse and follow him.”