Rujub, the Juggler

“Time will show, sahib,” the juggler said; “the pictures never lie. Shall I show you other things?”

“No, Rujub, you have shown me enough; you have astounded me. I want to see no more tonight.”

“Then farewell, sahib; we shall meet again, I doubt not, and mayhap I may be able to repay the debt I owe you;” and Rujub, lifting his basket, went out through the window without another word.

CHAPTER III

Some seven or eight officers were sitting round the table in the messroom of the 103d Bengal Infantry at Cawnpore. It had been a guest night, but the strangers had left, the lights had been turned out in the billiard room overhead, the whist party had broken up, and the players had rejoined three officers who had remained at table smoking and talking quietly.

Outside, through the open French windows, the ground looked as if sprinkled with snow beneath the white light of the full moon. Two or three of the mess servants were squatting in the veranda, talking in low voices. A sentry walked backwards and forwards by the gate leading into the mess house compound; beyond, the maidan stretched away flat and level to the low huts of the native lines on the other side.

“So the Doctor comes back tomorrow, Major,” the Adjutant, who had been one of the whist party, said. “I shall be very glad to have him back. In the first place, he is a capital fellow, and keeps us all alive; secondly, he is a good deal better doctor than the station surgeon who has been looking after the men since we have been here; and lastly, if I had got anything the matter with me myself, I would rather be in his hands than those of anyone else I know.”

“Yes, I agree with you, Prothero; the Doctor is as good a fellow as ever stepped. There is no doubt about his talent in his profession; and there are a good many of us who owed our lives to him when we were down with cholera, in that bad attack three years ago. He is good all round; he is just as keen a shikari as he was when he joined the regiment, twenty years ago; he is a good billiard player, and one of the best storytellers I ever came across; but his best point is that he is such a thoroughly good fellow—always ready to do a good turn to anyone, and to help a lame dog over a stile. I could name a dozen men in India who owe their commissions to him. I don’t know what the regiment would do without him.”

“He went home on leave just after I joined,” one of the subalterns said. “Of course, I know, from all I have heard of him, that he is an awfully good fellow, but from the little I saw of him myself, he seemed always growling and snapping.”

There was a general laugh from the others.

“Yes, that is his way, Thompson,” the Major said; “he believes himself to be one of the most cynical and morose of men.”

“He was married, wasn’t he, Major?”

“Yes, it was a sad business. It was only just after I joined. He is three years senior to me in the regiment. He was appointed to it a month or two after the Colonel joined. Well, as I say, a month or two after I came to it, he went away on leave down to Calcutta, where he was to meet a young lady who had been engaged to him before he left home. They were married, and he brought her up country. Before she had been with us a month we had one of those outbreaks of cholera. It wasn’t a very severe one. I think we only lost eight or ten men, and no officer; but the Doctor’s young wife was attacked, and in three or four hours she was carried off. It regularly broke him down. However, he got over it, as we all do, I suppose; and now I think he is married to the regiment. He could have had staff appointments a score of times, but he has always refused them. His time is up next year, and he could go home on full pay, but I don’t suppose he will.”

“And your niece arrives with him tomorrow, Major,” the Adjutant said.

“Yes, I am going to try petticoat government, Prothero. I don’t know how the experiment will succeed, but I am tired of an empty bungalow, and I have been looking forward for some years to her being old enough to come out and take charge. It is ten years since I was home, and she was a little chit of eight years old at that time.”

“I think a vote of thanks ought to be passed to you, Major. We have only married ladies in the regiment, and it will wake us up and do us good to have Miss Hannay among us.”

“There are the Colonel’s daughters,” the Major said, with a smile.

“Yes, there are, Major, but they hardly count; they are scarcely conscious of the existence of poor creatures like us; nothing short of a Resident or, at any rate, of a full blown Collector, will find favor in their eyes.”

“Well, I warn you all fairly,” the Major said, “that I shall set my face against all sorts of philandering and love making. I am bringing my niece out here as my housekeeper and companion, and not as a prospective wife for any of you youngsters. I hope she will turn out to be as plain as a pikestaff, and then I may have some hopes of keeping her with me for a time. The Doctor, in his letter from Calcutta, says nothing as to what she is like, though he was good enough to remark that she seemed to have a fair share of common sense, and has given him no more trouble on the voyage than was to be expected under the circumstances. And now, lads, it is nearly two o’clock, and as there is early parade tomorrow, it is high time for you to be all in your beds. What a blessing it would be if the sun would forget to shine for a bit on this portion of the world, and we could have an Arctic night of seven or eight months with a full moon the whole time!”

A few minutes later the messroom was empty, the lights turned out, and the servants wrapped up in their blankets had disposed themselves for sleep in the veranda.

As soon as morning parade was over Major Hannay went back to his bungalow, looked round to see that his bachelor quarters were as bright and tidy as possible, then got into a light suit and went down to the post house. A quarter of an hour later a cloud of dust along the road betokened the approach of the Dak Gharry, and two or three minutes later it dashed up at full gallop amid a loud and continuous cracking of the driver’s whip. The wiry little horses were drawn up with a sudden jerk.

The Major opened the door. A little man sprang out and grasped him by the hand.

“Glad to see you, Major—thoroughly glad to be back again. Here is your niece; I deliver her safe and sound into your hands.” And between them they helped a girl to alight from the vehicle.

“I am heartily glad to see you, my dear,” the Major said, as he kissed her; “though I don’t think I should have known you again.”

“I should think not, uncle,” the girl said. “In the first place, I was a little girl in short frocks when I saw you last; and in the second place, I am so covered with the dust that you can hardly see what I am like. I think I should have known you; your visit made a great impression upon us, though I can remember now how disappointed we were when you first arrived that you hadn’t a red coat and a sword, as we had expected.”

“Well, we may as well be off at once, Isobel; it is only five minutes’ walk to the bungalow. My man will see to your luggage being brought up. Come along, Doctor. Of course you will put up with me until you can look round and fix upon quarters. I told Rumzan to bring your things round with my niece’s. You have had a very pleasant voyage out, I hope, Isobel?” he went on, as they started.

“Very pleasant, uncle, though I got rather tired of it at last.”

“That is generally the way—everyone is pleasant and agreeable at first, but before they get to the end they take to quarreling like cats and dogs.”

“We were not quite as bad as that,” the girl laughed, “but we certainly weren’t as amiable the last month or so as we were during the first part of the voyage. Still, it was very pleasant all along, and nobody quarreled with me.”

“Present company are always excepted,” the Doctor said. “I stood in loco parentis, Major, and the result has been that I shall feel in future more charitable towards mothers of marriageable daughters. Still, I am bound to say that Miss Hannay has given me as little trouble as could be expected.”

“You frighten me, Doctor; if you found her so onerous only for a voyage, what have I to look forward to?”

“Well, you can’t say that I didn’t warn you, Major; when you wrote home and asked me to take charge of your niece on the way out, I told you frankly that my opinion of your good sense was shaken.”

“Yes, you did express yourself with some strength,” the Major laughed; “but then one is so accustomed to that, that I did not take it to heart as I might otherwise have done.”

“That was before you knew me, Dr. Wade, otherwise I should feel very hurt,” the girl put in.

“Yes, it was,” the Doctor said dryly.

“Don’t mind him, my dear,” her uncle said; “we all know the Doctor of old. This is my bungalow.”

“It is pretty, with all these flowers and shrubs round it,” she said admiringly.

“Yes, we have been doing a good deal of watering the last few weeks, so as to get it to look its best. This is your special attendant; she will take you up to your room. By the time you have had a bath, your boxes will be here. I told them to have a cup of tea ready for you upstairs. Breakfast will be on the table by the time you are ready.”

“Well, old friend,” he said to the Doctor, when the girl had gone upstairs, “no complications, I hope, on the voyage?”

“No, I think not,” the Doctor said. “Of course, there were lots of young puppies on board, and as she was out and out the best looking girl in the ship half of them were dancing attendance upon her all the voyage, but I am bound to say that she acted like a sensible young woman; and though she was pleasant with them all, she didn’t get into any flirtation with one more than another. I did my best to look after her, but, of course, that would have been of no good if she had been disposed to go her own way. I fancy about half of them proposed to her—not that she ever said as much to me—but whenever I observed one looking sulky and giving himself airs I could guess pretty well what had happened. These young puppies are all alike, and we are not without experience of the species out here.

“Seriously, Major, I think you are to be congratulated. I consider that you ran a tremendous risk in asking a young woman, of whom you knew nothing, to come out to you; still it has turned out well. If she had been a frivolous, giggling thing, like most of them, I had made up my mind to do you a good turn by helping to get her engaged on the voyage, and should have seen her married offhand at Calcutta, and have come up and told you that you were well out of the scrape. As, contrary to my expectations, she turned out to be a sensible young woman, I did my best the other way. It is likely enough you may have her on your hands some little time, for I don’t think she is likely to be caught by the first comer. Well, I must go and have my bath; the dust has been awful coming up from Allahabad. That is one advantage, and the only one as far as I can see, that they have got in England. They don’t know what dust is there.”

When the bell for breakfast rang, and Isobel made her appearance, looking fresh and cool, in a light dress, the Major said, “You must take the head of the table, my dear, and assume the reins of government forthwith.”

“Then I should say, uncle, that if any guidance is required, there will be an upset in a very short time. No, that won’t do at all. You must go on just as you were before, and I shall look on and learn. As far as I can see, everything is perfect just as it is. This is a charming room, and I am sure there is no fault to be found with the arrangement of these flowers on the table. As for the cooking, everything looks very nice, and anyhow, if you have not been able to get them to cook to your taste, it is of no use my attempting anything in that way. Besides, I suppose I must learn something of the language before I can attempt to do anything. No, uncle, I will sit in this chair if you like, and make tea and pour it out, but that is the beginning and the end of my assumption of the head of the establishment at present.”

“Well, Isobel, I hardly expected that you were going to run the establishment just at first; indeed, as far as that goes, one’s butler, if he is a good man, has pretty well a free hand. He is generally responsible, and is in fact what we should call at home housekeeper—he and the cook between them arrange everything. I say to him, ‘Three gentlemen are coming to tiffen.’ He nods and says ‘Atcha, sahib,’ which means ‘All right, sir,’ and then I know it will be all right. If I have a fancy for any special thing, of course I say so. Otherwise, I leave it to them, and if the result is not satisfactory, I blow up. Nothing can be more simple.”

“But how about bills, uncle?”

“Well, my dear, the butler gives them to me, and I pay them. He has been with me a good many years, and will not let the others—that is to say, the cook and the syce, the washerman, and so on, cheat me beyond a reasonable amount. Do you, Rumzan?”

Rumzan, who was standing behind the Major’s chair, in a white turban and dress, with a red and white sash round his waist, smiled.

“Rumzan not let anyone rob his master.”

“Not to any great extent, you know, Rumzan. One doesn’t expect more than that.”

“It is just the same here, Miss Hannay, as it is everywhere else,” said the Doctor; “only in big establishments in England they rob you of pounds, while here they rob you of annas, which, as I have explained to you, are two pence halfpennies. The person who undertakes to put down little peculations enters upon a war in which he is sure to get the worst of it. He wastes his time, spoils his temper, makes himself and everyone around him uncomfortable, and after all he is robbed. Life is too short for it, especially in a climate like this. Of course, in time you get to understand the language; if you see anything in the bills that strikes you as showing waste you can go into the thing, but as a rule you trust entirely to your butler; if you cannot trust him, get another one. Rumzan has been with your uncle ten years, so you are fortunate. If the Major had gone home instead of me, and if you had had an entirely fresh establishment of servants to look after, the case would have been different; as it is, you will have no trouble that way.”