“That’s a good thing, too,” said Mr. Barney, heartily. “But you understand, my lad, that there may be friends expecting the girl in the Old Country, that she knows nothing about. We shall have to report the case to the British consul at Baltimore, and he will look up her folks—if she has any. In case there should be none, somebody might have to step in to save the child from being sent to an institution—in England, I presume. They would scarcely send her back to India.”
“Not much, sir!” I exclaimed. “They will have to show pretty good grounds for taking her from mother——”
“Why, you don’t know whether your mother will take her or not,” laughed Mr. Barney.
“Yes she will,” I assured him. “She’d love to have a girl like Phillis.”
And I had no fear on that score. Mother couldn’t help but fall in love with such a dear little thing as Phillis Duane. I was glad to see that Phillis seemed fond of me, too. I had never had a sister, and it struck me just then that a sister was what I had missed all my life!
We were getting on fine together and she was chattering to me just as though she had known me for years, when I spied a figure coming waveringly down the deck from the forward house.
“It’s poor Dao Singh!” exclaimed Phillis. And then she called to him in her sweet voice; but what she said none of us could understand as it was in his own tongue.
He glided rather than walked along the deck. Somehow he had obtained clean garments; and he had washed his turban. Altogether he looked very neat and trim. But he was very weak and cadaverous. That Hindoo had come pretty near starving to death, and no mistake.
When he had spoken to the girl in reply, bowing low before her, he turned quickly to me. I was not only astonished, but I felt mighty foolish when he dropped gracefully on his knees and touched the deck lightly with his forehead right at my feet.
“Dao Singh is the servant of Webb Sahib,” he said, softly.