“You'll want a pass up the line. How many servants? Three--four--how many?”
“One,” said the Rangar, and King was instantly suspicious of the modesty of that allowance; however he wrote out a pass for Rewa Gunga and one servant and gave it to him.
“Be there on time and see about your own reservation,” he said. “I'll attend to Ismail's pass myself.”
He folded the list of names that the Rangar had marked and wrote something on the back. Then he begged an envelope, and Rewa Gunga had one brought to him. He sealed the list in the envelope, addressed it and beckoned Ismail again.
“Take this to Saunders sahib!” he ordered. “Go first to the telegraph office, where you were before, and the babu there will tell you where Saunders sahib may be found. Having found him, deliver the letter to him. Then come and find me at the Star of India Hotel and help me to bathe and change my clothes.”
“To hear is to obey!” boomed Ismail, bowing; but his last glance was for Rewa Gunga, and he did not turn to go until he had met the Rangar's eyes.
When Ismail had gone striding down the room, with no glance to spare for the whispering women in the window, and with dignity like an aura exuding from him, King looked into the Rangar's eyes with that engaging frankness of his that disarms so many people.
“Then you'll be on the train to-night?” he asked.
“To hear is to obey! With pleasure, sahib!”
“Then good-by until this evening.”
King bowed very civilly and walked out, rather unsteadily because his head ached. Probably nobody else, except the Rangar, could have guessed what an ordeal he had passed through or how near he had been to losing self-command.
But as he felt his way down the stairs, that were dimly lighted now, he knew he had all his senses with him, for he “spotted” and admired the lurking places that had been designed for undoing of the unwary, or even the overwary. Yasmini's Delhi nest was like a hundred traps in one.
“Almost like a pool table,”
Prev.
Back
Top