"I-I-I came to ask about a friend of mine—by name Risaldar—Major
Ranjoor Singh. I understand you know him?"
She nodded, and Kirby fought with a desire to let his mind wander. The subtle hypnotism that the East knows how to stage and use was creeping over him. She stood so close! She seemed so like the warm soft spirit of all womanhood that only the measured rising and falling of her bosom, under the gauzy drapery, made her seem human and not a spirit. Subtly, ever so cunningly, she had contrived to touch a chord in Colonel Kirby's heart that he did not know lived any more. Warrington was speechless; he could not have trusted himself to speak. She had touched another chord in him.
"He came here more than once, or so I've been given to understand," said Kirby, and his own voice startled him, for it seemed harsh. "He is said to have listened to a lecture here—I was told the lecture was delivered by a German—and there was some sort of a fracas outside in the street afterward. I'm told some of his squadron were near, and they thrashed a man. Now, Ranjoor Singh is missing."
"So?" said Yasmini, arching her whole lithe body into a setting for the prettiest yawn that Kirby had ever seen. "So the Jat is missing! Yes, he came here, sahib. He was never invited, but he came. He sat here saying nothing until it suited him to sit where another man was; then he struck the other man—so, with the sole of his foot—and took the man's place, and heard what he came to hear. Later, outside in the street, he and his men set on the Afridi whom he had struck with his foot and beat him."
"I have heard a variation of that," said Kirby.
"Have you ever heard, sahib, that he who strikes the wearer of a Northern knife is like to feel that knife? So Ranjoor Singh, the Jat, is missing?"
"Yes," said Kirby, frowning, for he was not pleased to hear Ranjoor Singh spoken of slightingly. A Jat may be a good enough man, and usually is, but a Sikh is a Jat who is better.
"And if he is missing, what has that to do with me?" asked Yasmini.
"I have heard—men say—"
"Yes?" she said, laughing, for it amused her almost more than any other thing to see dignity disarmed.