“Nay, sahib; I was hidden by this hill as I crossed the valley.”
No further reason for delay offering itself, Colonel Keeling turned his back upon the man and opened the letter. As he drew out the enclosure his hands shook and his dark face was white. As if by main force he unfolded the paper and held it before his eyes, which refused at first to convey any meaning to his mind:—
“Alibad. 1 A.M.
“Daughter born shortly before midnight; fine healthy child. Mrs Keeling doing well.
“J. Tarleton.”
An exclamation of thankfulness broke from the Commandant, and he brushed something from his eyes before turning again to the chaprasi.
“There will be a hundred rupees for you when I return, Rahim Khan. You had no message but this?”
“One that the Memsahib’s ayah brought me, from her mistress’s own lips, sahib. It was this: Say to the Sahib, ‘Is it well with thee, as it is well with me?’”
“Then say this to the ayah: Tell the Memsahib, ‘It is well with me, since it is well with thee.’ Stay,” he wrote hastily on the back of the doctor’s note two or three lines from what Penelope always told him was the only one of Tennyson’s poems he could appreciate:—
“‘Thy face across his fancy comes,