"By Krishna! I swear you wrong me," cried he; "Brahmin I am, and will be; you know my creed tells me that I have been successively transformed through every grade of suffering humanity, and now that I have reached the top, I am not such a fool as to descend to the bottom and undergo the whole pain over again for the sake of a few kabobs."
"You are right," said I; "nevertheless I will try them; I could not eat when I wished at my tent, but their smell has raised my appetite wonderfully." And in a short time my fingers were pretty deep in a smoking dish of kicheree and kabobs, as hot as pepper could make them.
"Friend Bhutteara," said I when I had done, "surely the Shitan himself must visit your shop now and then, for no other could eat those scraps of meat, except he had a mouth of brass."
"I beg pardon," said the fellow, "but I was away on business, and I suspect my daughter must, as you say, have put too much pepper in them; but I can make my lord a cup of sherbet, a poor imitation of what true believers will drink in Paradise, and it will cool his mouth."
"And a hookah, if you please," said I, "then I shall feel more comfortable."
[CHAPTER X.]
I heard the Bhutteara bustling about in the interior of his house for a while, and was gratified to see that he so evidently exerted himself to please me. In a short time more the sherbet was prepared, and its grateful coolness, with the rose-water which had been mingled with it, allayed the irritation of my mouth, and enabled me to enjoy a hookah, which, if served in a less costly apparatus than that the Nuwab had offered me, was as good in flavour: its pleasing fumes composed me, and quieted the feverish excitement I had hitherto been in.
"You appear comfortable," said Bhudrinath.
"I am so," I replied; "and I doubt not you envy me, in spite of your Brahminical belief."