In the Guardianship of God. Flora Annie Webster Steel

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СКАЧАТЬ of his services, was the time for him to take that leave home which he had deferred so long. Therefore, two or three days after this event, he had turned up at the Quartermaster's office with the curious Indian institution, "the changeling," and preferred his request for a holiday. It was granted, of course; there is no reason why leave should not be granted when a double, willing even to answer to the same name, stands ready to step into the original's shoes, without payment; that remaining a bargain between the doubles.

      "Here," said Peroo, "is my brother. He is even as myself. His character is mine. We are all water-carriers, and he has done the work for two days. I will also leave him my skin bag, so that the Presence may be sure it is clean. He is a Peroo also."

      He might have been the Peroo so far as the Quartermaster's requirements went. So the original went home and the copy took his place; but not for the two months. The order for active service of which the Colonel had spoken came sooner than was expected, and Peroo, hearing of it, started back at once for the regiment. A "changeling" could pass muster in peace, but war required the reality; besides, the master would, no doubt, be released. He was surely too good fighting material to be left behind, Peroo told himself; yet there his hero was, lying in the dust of a bye-alley in the bazaar in a ragged bad-character suit, while the barrack squares were alive with men, not half so good to look at, talking, as the mules were laden, of the deeds they were to do!

      The wrinkles on Peroo's forehead grew more like those of a monkey in arms than ever. This was indeed a tyranny! but at least the Presence could be moved out of the burning sun this time without, of necessity, getting him into more trouble. So a few friends were called, and together they carried George Afford into the windowless slip of a room which Peroo locked at four o'clock in the morning and unlocked at ten at night, but which, nevertheless, served him as a home. There was nothing in it save a string bed and a drinking vessel; for Peroo, after his kind, ate his food in the bazaar; but that for the present was all the Englishman required either. So there Peroo left him in the darkness and the cool, safe for the day.

      But after that? The problem went with Peroo as he limped about filling the cook-room waterpots, for on the morrow he must be filling them on the first camping-ground, fifteen miles away from that slip of a room where the master lay. What would become of him then?

      The sandy stretches in which the barracks stood were full of mules, camels, carts, and men of all arms belonging to the small picked force which was to march with the one solid regiment at dawn on their mission of punishment.

      "Pâni (water)," shouted a perspiring artilleryman, grappling with a peculiarly obstinate mule, as Peroo went past with his skin bag. "Pâni, and bring a real jildi (quickness) along with it. W'ot! you ain't the drinkin'-water, ain't yer? W'ot's that to me? I ain't one o' yer bloomin' Brahmins; but I'll take it outside instead o' in, because of them black-silly's o' the doctor's. So turn on the hose, Johnnie; I'll show you how."

      "'E knows all about it, you bet," put in one of the regiment cheerfully. "Wy, 'e's bin hydraulic engineer and waterworks combined to that pore chap as got the sack the other day--George Afford--"

      "Sure it was a thriflin' mistake wid the prepositions his godfathers made when they named him; for it was on and not off-erd he was six days out of sivin," remarked a tall Irishman.

      "You hold your jaw, Pat," interrupted another voice. "'E was a better chap nor most, w'en 'e wasn't on the lap; and, Lordy! 'e could fight when he 'ad the chanst--couldn't 'e, Waterworks? Just turn that hose o' yours my way a bit, will yer?"

      "Huzoor," assented Peroo, deferentially; he understood enough to make the thought pass through his brain that it was a pity the master had not the chance. Perhaps the curve of water conveyed this to that other brain beneath the close, fair curls, whence the drops flew sparkling in the sunlight. At any rate, their owner went on in a softer tone--

      "Yes, 'e fit--like fits. Looked, too, as if 'e was born ter die on the field o' glory, and not in a bad-character suit; but, as the parson says: 'Beauty is vain. I will repay, saith the Lord.'"

      The confused morality of this passed Peroo by; and yet something not altogether dissimilar lay behind his wrinkled forehead when, work over, he returned to the slip of a room and found Afford vaguely roused by his entrance.

      "I--I am aware it is no possible excuse, sir," came his voice, curiously refined, curiously pathetic, "but I really have had a very chequered life, I have indeed."

      "Huzoor," acquiesced Peroo, briefly; but even that was sufficient to bring the hearer closer to realities. He sat up on the string bed, looked about him stupidly, then sank back again.

      "Get away! you d----d black devil," he muttered, with a sort of listless anger. "Can't you let me die in peace, you fool? Can't you let me die in the gutter, die in a bad-character suit? It's all I'm fit for--all I'm fit for." Voice, anger, listlessness, all tailed away to silence. He turned away with a sort of sob, and straightway fell asleep, for he was still far from sober.

      Peroo lit a cresset lamp and stood looking at him. Beauty was certainly vain here, and if the Lord was going to repay, it was time He began. Time some one began, at any rate, if the man who had fought for him, Peroo, was not to carry out his desire of dying in the gutter--dying in a bad-character suit! The latter misfortune could, however, be avoided. Things were going cheap in the bazaar that evening, as was only natural when it was to be deserted for six months at least, so it ought not to be hard to get the master an exchange for something more suitable to his beauty, if not to his death.

      Five minutes afterwards George Afford, too much accustomed to such ministrations to be disturbed by the process of undressing, was still asleep, his chin resting peacefully on Peroo's best white cotton shawl, and the bad-character suit was on its way to the pawnshop round the corner. It was nigh on an hour, however, before Peroo, having concluded his bargain, came back with it, and by the light of the cresset set to work appraising his success or failure. A success certainly. The uniform was old, no doubt, but it was a corporal's; and what is more, it had three good-conduct stripes on the arm. That ought to give dignity, even to a death in the gutter.

      Peroo brought out some pipeclay and pumice-stone from a crevice, and set to work cheerfully on the buttons and belts, thinking as he worked that he had indeed made a good bargain. With a judicious smear of cinnabar here and there, the tunic would be almost as good as the master's old one--plus the good-conduct stripes, of course, which he could never have gained in the regiment.

      But out of it? If, for instance, the Lord were really to repay Private George Afford for that good deed in defending a poor lame man?--a good deed which no bad one could alter for the worse! Peroo on this point would have been a match for a whole college of Jesuits in casuistry, as he laid on the pipeclay with lavish hand, and burnished the buttons till they shone like gold.

      It was grey dawn when George Afford woke, feeling a deferential touch on his shoulder.

      "Huzoor!" came a familiar voice, "the first bugle has gone. The Huzoor will find his uniform--a corporal's, with three good-conduct stripes--is ready. The absence of a rifle is to be regretted; but that shall be amended if the Huzoor will lend a gracious ear to the plan of his slave. In the meantime a gifting of the Huzoor's feet for the putting on of stockings might be ordered."

      George Afford thrust out a foot mechanically, and sate on the edge of the string bed staring stupidly at the three good-conduct stripes on the tunic, which was neatly folded beside him.

      "It is quite simple," went on the deferential voice. "The Huzoor is going to march with the colours, but he will be twelve hours behind them; that is all. He will get the fighting, and by-and-by, when the killing comes and men are wanted, the Colonel-sahib СКАЧАТЬ