The
Delhi mud sticks as tight as any, and the kneading of it from out of
horsehair taxes most of a trooper's energy and full attention. Then,
the East being the East in all things, a solitary; trooper picked up
the scent and gave tongue, as a true hound guides the pack.
"Who is _she_?" he wondered, loud enough for fifty men to hear.
From out of a cloud of horse-dust, where a stable helper on
probation combed a tangled tail, came one word of swift enlightenment.
"Yasmini!"
"Ah-h-h-h!" In a second the whole squadron was by the ears, and the
stable-helper was the center of an interest he had not bargained for.
"Nay, sahibs, I but followed him, and how should I know? Nay, then I
did not follow him! It so happened. I took that road, and he stepped
out of a _tikka-gharri_ at her door. Am I blind? Do I not know
her door? Does not everybody know it? Who am I that I should know why
he goes again? But--does a moth fly only once to the lamp-flame? Does
a drunkard drink but once? By the Guru, nay! May my tongue parch in
my throat if I said he is a drunkard! I said--I meant to say--seeing
she is Yasmini, and he having been to see her once--and being again
in a great hurry--whither goes he?"
So the squadron chose a sub-committee of inquiry, seven strong, that
being a lucky number the wide world over, and the movements of the
risaldar-major were reported one by one to the squadron with the
infinite exactness of small detail that seems so useless to all save
Easterns.
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