“Would you be pleased, Mahommed Gunga, if I entered your house with my hat on and without knocking or without permission?”
“Sahib, I—”
“Be good enough to have that brute's carcass dragged out and skinned, and—ah—leave me to sleep, will you?”
Mahommed Gunga bowed, and growled an order; another man passed the order on, and the tom-tom thundering began again as a dozen villagers pattered in to take away the tiger.
“Tell them, please,” commanded Cunningham, “that that racket is to cease. I want to sleep.”
Again Mahommed Gunga bowed, without a smile or a tremor on his face; again a growled order was echoed and re-echoed through the dark. The drumming stopped.
“Is there oil in the bahadur's lamp?” asked Mahommed Gunga.
“Probably not,” said Cunningham.
“I will command that—”
“You needn't trouble, thank you, risaldar-sahib. I sleep better in the dark. I'll be glad to see you after breakfast as usual—ah—without your shoes, unless you come in uniform. Good night.”