"Sahib have mercy on Jaikeran!" he quavered. "Sahib no kill poor Jaikeran this time! Sahib spare my life, and sahib have tit-for-tat." When the Electrical Engineer said, "Don't be a fool!" and tried to fix his mask on for him, he made for the open door, and the exasperated Electrical Engineer started to chase him round and round the cottage.
We would have let him go back to his home—a patch of mealies, two cows, a hut, and a skinny brother—shining clearly about three miles away on the broad table of green, but we had to have Jaikeran to help; so the Electrical Engineer caught him, assured him that (if we could manage it) no one would die that day, and, leading him back by the scruff of his neck, it seemed as if now, at last, all was once more ready.
"I am of o—pinion," said Six-and-eightpence, when we once more stood ready round the table in the dining-room, "that we should each be armed with a wet blanket in case of necessity."
"Jaikeran," said I, "go to the tents and fetch the blankets. Juldee!"
"Now," said the Electrical Engineer, "go, Jaikeran, to the well and fetch a bucket of water, and keep your mask on, Jaikeran; it's too much trouble to fix again. You can see your way through the eyelet holes."
So Jaikeran departed in his mask across the veldt for the water, and returned with a string of affrighted Dutch villagers behind him.
"For certain they are dynamiters," said one old back-veldt Boer.
"Or coiners," said another.
"No," whispered a third. "It is as I told you. The English are all mad. The Indian servant-man says it is to be a mosquito hunt! And each one engaged in it risks his life! Who but lunatics would act so?"