“Go, then, and look!” said Strickland. “Take a lamp. Thy master is tired, and he waits. Go!”
The man picked up a lamp and went into the dining-room, Strickland following, and almost pushing him with the muzzle of the rifle. He looked for a moment at the black depths behind the ceiling-cloth, at the carcass of the mangled snake under foot, and last, a grey glaze setting on his face, at the thing under the table-cloth.
“Hast thou seen?” said Strickland, after a pause.
“I have seen. I am clay in the white man's hands. What does the presence do?”
“Hang thee within a month! What else?”
“For killing him? Nay, sahib, consider. Walking among us, his servants, he cast his eyes upon my child, who was four years old. Him he bewitched, and in ten days he died of the fever. My child!”
“What said Imray Sahib?”
“He said he was a handsome child, and patted him on the head; wherefore my child died. Wherefore I killed Imray Sahib in the twilight, when he came back from office and was sleeping. The heaven-born knows all things. I am the servant of the heaven-born.”
Strickland looked at me above the rifle, and said, in the vernacular: “Thou art witness to this saying. He has killed.”
Bahadur Khan stood ashen grey in the light of the one lamp. The need for justification came upon him very swiftly.