“Timlay Doola,” said he. “At the first, I being then a little child, it is in my mind that he wore a red coat.”
“Of that I have no doubt. But repeat the name of thy father thrice or four times.”
He obeyed, and I understood whence the puzzling accent in his speech came. “Thimla Dhula,” said he excitedly. “To this hour I worship his God.”
“May I see that God?”
“In a little while—at twilight time.”
“Rememberest thou aught of thy father’s speech?”
“It is long ago. But there is one word which he said often. Thus, ‘Shun.’ Then I and my brethren stood upon our feet, our hands to our sides. Thus.”
“Even so. And what was thy mother?”
“A woman of the hills. We be Lepchas of Darjeeling, but me they call an outlander because my hair is as thou seest.”
The Thibetan woman, his wife, touched him on the arm gently. The long parley outside the fort had lasted far into the day. It was now close upon twilight—the hour of the Angelus. Very solemnly, the red-headed brats rose from the floor and formed a semicircle. Namgay Doola laid his gun against the wall, lighted a little oil lamp, and set it before a recess in the wall. Pulling aside a curtain of dirty cloth, he revealed a worn brass crucifix leaning against the helmet-badge of a long-forgotten East India regiment. “Thus did my father,” he said, crossing himself clumsily. The wife and children followed suit. Then all together they struck up the wailing chant that I heard on the hillside—