“He says the man is here, and did that.”
“Then you know as much about it as I do,” asserted Kadir Dhin, with an impatient wave of his hand.
“But do you believe it?”
“That is my business. If I say I don’t, you will then declare that I must have put you in the trunk. You’d better talk to Colonel Gunn about it. I don’t know anything.”
“You’re a Hindu?” said Clancy, butting in.
A flush of anger put color into the dark cheeks of Kadir Dhin.
“I have that honor,” he declared.
“Yet you speak English better than most Americans!”
“I was educated at the English school in Madras. If I was ignorant of the language, could I have taken a place in this school? You talk like a fool. Remember that I was Lieutenant Maitland’s secretary, translating all his written orders to his Hindu soldiers into their native dialects. I am doubtless a fool—for talking with you, but I am not an ignoramus.”
He turned to Chip: