He
heard several of them scamper close, and one bit his leg; so he made
ready to fight for his life against the worst enemy a man may have,
praying a little in the Sikh way, that does not reckon God to be far
off at any time.
Suddenly the trap-door opened, and the rats scampered away from the
light and noise.
"Thus is a soldier answered!" muttered Ranjoor Singh.
"Is the risaldar-major sahib thirsty?" wondered Yasmini.
He could hear her pouring water out of a brass ewer into a dish, and
pouring it back again. The metal rang and the water splashed
deliriously, but he was not very thirsty yet; he had been thirstier
on parade a hundred times.
When her head and shoulders darkened the aperture, he did not
trouble this time to look at her.
"Is it dark down there?" she asked him; but he did not answer.
So she struck a match and lit a newspaper. In a moment a ball of
fire was floating downward to him, and it was then that the smell of
dust and kerosene entered his consciousness as pincers enter the
flesh of men in torment. He stood up with hands upstretched to catch
the fire--caught it--bore it downward--and smothered it in gunny-bags.
"Still dark?" she said, looking through the aperture once more. "I
will send another one!"
So Ranjoor Singh found his tongue and cursed her with a force and
comprehensiveness that only Asia can command; he gave her to
understand that the next fire she dropped on him should be allowed to
work God's will and burn her--her, her rats, her cobras, and her
cutthroats.
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