'I want to go to my own country—with you,' said Sunni. 'I can march.'
The Colonel smiled. It was the smile of a brave man, and kindly. His men knew it as well as they knew his sterner looks. Sunni thought it a beautiful smile.
'You shall go,' he said, 'but we are not quite ready to start yet. Perhaps in a few days, perhaps in a few weeks, we shall be. A good deal depends on what you can tell me.'
Sunni looked straight into the Colonel's eyes, a little puzzled.
'How do they get water in Lalpore?' asked the Colonel, to begin with.
'There are four wells,' said Sunni, 'and two of them have no bottom.'
'H'm! And what is that white building with the round roof that we see from here?'
'That is the mosque of Larulla,' said Sunni, 'but it is no longer of consequence; there is so little Mussulmans in Lalpore. The soldiers hang their guns there now.'
'Ah! And has the Maharajah many soldiers, and have they good guns—new guns?'
Sunni looked into the Colonel's face with eager pleasure to reply; but there he saw something that made him suddenly close his lips. He had not lived ten years among the Rajputs without learning to read faces, and in Colonel Starr's he saw that all this talk the Colonel desired about Lalpore was not for Lalpore's good. The boy thought for a minute, and tightened his lips, while a little firm line came on each side of his mouth. He only opened them to say, 'Burra sahib, I cannot tell you that.'