“Taking me and Mir Abdul Haq and Mir Hussein Ali and many men and servants, among whom was the body-servant, the boy Moussa Isa Somali, he set forth, a little depressed that we heard not the cry of the partridge in the fields of Mekran Kot as we started—not exactly a bad omen, but lacking a good one. And sure enough, ere we won to Kot Ghazi, his eyes became red and inflamed, very sore and painful to use. So, he put the tail of his puggri[23] about his face and rode all day from sun-rise to sun-set in darkness, his camel being driven by Abdulali Gulamali Bokhari—the same who later rose to fame and honour as an outlaw and was hanged at Peshawar after a brave and successful career. And being arrived, in due course, at Kot Ghazi, before entering the bungalow belonging to the Jam Saheb, he knelt his camel at the door of the shop of a European hakim—in English a—er—”
[23] Turban.
“Chemist, Mir Saheb,” I suggested.
“Doubtless, since your honour says it—of a kimmish, and entering, to the Eurasian dog therein said in English, of which he knew everything (and taught me much, as your honour knows), ’Look you. I need lotion for my eyes, eye medicine, and a bath for them’ and the man mixed various waters and poured them into a blue bottle with red labels, very beautiful to see, and wrote upon it. Also he gave my brother a small cup of glass, shaped like the mouth of the pulla fish or the eye-socket of a man. And my brother, knowing what to do, used the things then and there, to the wonder of Abdul Haq and Hussein Ali, pouring the liquor into the glass cup, and holding it to his eyes, and with back-thrown head washing the eye and soothing it.
“’Shahbas!’[24] quoth he. ‘It is good,’ and anon we proceeded to the gun-shop and then to the bungalow belonging to the Jam Saheb. And lo and behold, here we discovered the dog Ibrahim Mahmud, and my brother twisted the knife of memory in the wound of insult by ordering him to quit the room he occupied and seek another, since Mir Jan intended the room for his body-servant, Moussa Isa Somali—the servant of a Mir being more deserving of the room than the son of a Vizier! This was unwise, but my brother’s heart was too great to fear (or to fathom) the guile of such a serpent as Ibrahim.
[24] Bravo! Excellent!
“And when he had bathed and prayed, eaten and drunk and rested, my brother again anointed his eyes with the liquid—which though only like water, was strong to soothe and heal. And our servants and people watched him doing this with wonder and admiration, and the news of it spread to the servants of Ibrahim Mahmud, who told their master of this cleverness of Mir Jan,—and Ibrahim, after a while, sent a message and a present to my brother, humbling himself, and asking that he too might see this thing.
“And Mir Jan, perhaps a little proud of his English ways, sat upon his charpai,[25] and bathed his eyes in the little bath, until, wearying of the trouble of pouring back the liquid into the bottle, he would press the bottle itself to his eye and throw back his head. So his eyes were quickly eased of pain, and in the evening we all went forth to enjoy.