"Fine!" Finnerty commented. "I'll need wrestling togs, prince."
"The baboo will take you to my room and get a suit for you."
Finnerty put the sapphire in a silver cigarette box that was on the table, saying: "I'll leave this here," and followed Chunder Sen into the palace.
"Devilish sporting, I call it; Finnerty is Irish, but he's a Britisher," Gilfain proclaimed. "He'll jolly well play rugby with your friend, Herr Boelke."
"In my country ve do not shout until der victory is obtained; ve vill see," and the doctor puffed noisily at his cheroot.
But the fish eyes of the professor were conveying to Prince Ananda malevolent messages, Swinton fancied. The whole thing had left a disturbing impression on his mind; Boelke's manner suggested a pre-arrangement with the prince.
The doctor's unpleasing physical contour would have furnished strong evidence against him on any charge of moral obliquity. He sat on the chair like a large-paunched gorilla, his round head topping the fatty mound like a coconut. His heavy-jowled face held a pair of cold, fishy eyes; coarse hair rose in an aggressive hedge from the seamed, low forehead, and white patches showed through the iron-grey thatch where little nicks had been made in the scalp by duelling swords at Heidelberg. He was a large man, but the suggestion of physical strength was destroyed by a depressing obeseness.
A tall, fine-looking rajput came across the terrace toward Darpore.
"Ah, Darna Singh," the prince greeted, rising; "you are just in time to see a kushti that will delight your warrior heart. This is my brother-in-law, Nawab Darna Singh," he continued, turning to Swinton and Gilfain and repeating their entitled names.
The rajput salaamed with grave dignity, saying the honour pleased him.