“For the love of Mike, get up!” I gasped, and I heard Thankful Polk giggling behind me, while Mr. Barney laughed outright. “You don’t want to kneel to me.”
Singh arose and stood, with dignity, before me.
“Webb Sahib has but to command,” he said, quietly. “He is the friend and protector of Her Innocence,” indicating Phillis with a scarcely perceptible gesture. “His word is law to Dao Singh.”
“All right, if that is so,” I said, glad that he had spoken too low for anybody else to hear. “If my word’s law, just you treat me with a little less deference. I’m only a man before the mast on this ship, and it won’t do to be kowtowing to me and treating me as you do the Memsahib. That’s all right for her, Dao Singh; but I’m not used to it.”
“It is as the Sahib pleases,” he replied, gravely. “He has but to command.”
I began to wonder if a Hindoo, who was so enthusiastically my friend, might not prove to be something of a nuisance in the end!
Chapter XIX
In Which I Learn Something More About the Barney Twins
The captain allowed Singh to wait upon his “Missee” to his heart’s content, and I heard the two mates laughing over the fact that the Hindoo insisted upon acting as steward and waiting upon the Captain Sahib at table. The Old Man wasn’t used to having a man standing behind his chair at meals and it near took his appetite away at first. But Phillis being in the cabin and soon taking her meals at the first table, pleased the officers immensely, I could see.
Forward, Singh was forever trying to do little things for me, and learning that I thought a good deal of Thankful Polk, the Hindoo included my chum in his voluntary services. He looked over our clothes and mended them, and insisted upon doing our washing.