One morning I was sitting as usual by the Meebhoy's bedside. I had just related to him my adventure with the Lord Mayor of Dublin, whom, as readers of contemporary journals will remember, I had been compelled to chastise for the unpardonable affront of calling me by my Christian name at a public meeting, by kicking him bodily from end to end of the Rotunda, breaking three chandeliers as he spun through the air, and imprinting the shape of his back on the opposite wall, where it may still be observed by the curious. This adventure, and the story of my subsequent escape from the dungeons of the Dublin Mansion House, have rarely failed to extort applause from those to whom I have narrated them. But on this occasion the Meebhoy was silent and distrait. He lay for some time drumming in an absent-minded way with his fingers on the front aluminium door of his wound (the famous operation had by this time been successfully performed), and made no comment whatever on the tale I had related to him. Then suddenly he turned, looked me full in the face, and addressed me. "Harkye, Sirrah," he observed, "your story has interested me strangely; but there is that in my mind which demands an exit. Methinks that they who hold governance here mistake me strangely. Because I am all but corpsed, they think they can neglect this Johnny. The Ranee has but once sent a stable-helper to inquire after me. Grammercy, but such treatment is scurvy, and I mean to show the old witch that Hadju Thâr knows what's what, and, by Jingo, he's going to have it all the time. That's so." I have forgotten, I think, to mention that my friend had learnt his English in Seringapatam from such examples as he could lay his hands on in that remote island, and the result was a certain patchiness of style, which did not, however, by any means, interfere with the vigour and fluency of his diction.
"Do you suppose," I said, "that this slight is intentional? Really, I cannot believe that the Ranee would willingly neglect so gallant and devoted a servant."
"That shows me you little know the Queen of the Diamond City. Why, blow me tight, she's as artful as a cartload of monkeys, and in profundity of design and daring of execution, she'd give a man-eating tiger two stone and a handsome beating over any course you care to name. But I am resolved to be avenged. Never shall it be said that the descendant of a thousand kings had the comether put on him by a cinder-faced old omadhaun like that. See here now," he continued, drawing me closer to him, while he glanced furtively round and sank his voice to a whisper, "it's yourself I'm talking to. Hast heard of the Pink Hippopotamus?"
"What!" I replied; "the sacred animal of the Seringapatamese, the dweller in the inaccessible mountain fastness of Jam Tirnova, the deathless guardian of the royal race of this island?"
"The same," he answered calmly; "no mortal foot, save those of his priests, has ever yet approached him. The perils are manifold, the attempt is well nigh desperate, but you're not the game chicken I take you for if you don't accomplish his capture and discomfit the haughty Ranee. Crikey, but I'd like to hear the old gal squeal when they tell her her bloomin' hippo's got took. Blime if I wouldn't."
"But how shall I set about it, what steps ought I to take?"
"Is it steps you mane? What in thunder is the man wanting? Here, boy, take these papers. I have set down in them clearly how the matter may best be undertaken. Peruse them and learn them well. If you have resource, courage and prudence, within a week the prize shall be yours, and the insult offered to me shall be expiated."
With that he pressed a bundle of papers into my hand, and bade me leave him.
As I left the tent I heard a scuffling of feet. I darted in the direction in which I thought they had gone, and there sure enough, running as if he wanted to break a hundred yards record, I perceived the Ranee's Chamberlain. I set off after him, nothing loth to give an example of my speed. Besides, if the old fellow had overheard us our doom was sealed; it was necessary to capture and silence him. In ten strides I was close up to him. In another moment I was near enough to seize him. I stretched out my hand to do so, when suddenly he gave two short yells, turned round in a swift pirouette, and, before I had realised what had happened, landed me a tremendous kick full on the chest. The force of the blow was terrible, and only my iron bones could have withstood it. Seeing that I still advanced he made at me again. This time, however, I was too quick for him. I seized him by his uplifted ankle, and, regardless of his appeal for mercy, whirled him three times round my head and flung him from me. His shoe remained in my hand, but beyond that no trace of the miserable Chamberlain has ever been discovered. He simply vanished from human knowledge as completely as though his body had been resolved into its elements. It is true that Professor Spooks of the University of Caffraria declared that a new meteor had on that very day appeared in South Africa travelling eastwards. His discovery was scoffed at by the scientific, but for my own part I have sometimes thought that, with a telescope of sufficient power, the learned Professor might have been able to establish an identity between his supposed comet and the lost Chamberlain of the Ranee.
Having thus dispatched my foe, I returned to my own quarters to study the papers of the Meebhoy.