[1] ‘Give mercy.’

There was absolute silence in the audience hall.  A parrakeet flashed through it screaming.  The shadows were creeping east over the marble floor; a little sun flamed out on the hilt of Maun Rao’s sword.  The Colonel stooped over the old woman and raised her up.  His face whitened as he looked at her.

‘It’s Tooni!’ he said, hoarsely.  And then, in a changed voice, unconscious of the time and place, ’Tooni, what happened to the memsahib?’ he asked.

The ayah burst into an incoherent torrent of words and tears.  The memsahib was very, very ill, she said.  There were not five breaths left in her body.  The memsahib had gone in the cart—­and the chota baba[1]—­the Sonny Sahib—­had always had good milk—­and she had taken none of the memsahib’s ornaments, only her little black book with the charm in it

[1] ‘The little baby.’

‘That is true talk,’ interposed Sunni, ’Tooni’s words are all true.  Here is the little black book.’

Colonel Starr had the face of a man in a dream, half conscious and trying to wake up.  His lips worked as he took the oilskin bag from Sunni, and he looked at it helplessly.  Little Lieutenant Pink took it gently from him, slit it down the side with a pocket-knife, and put back into the Colonel’s hand the small leather-bound book.  On the back of it was printed, in tarnished gold letters, ’Common Prayer.’

It was a very little book, but the Colonel was obliged to hold it with both hands.  Even then they trembled so that he could hardly turn to the fly-leaf.  His eyes filled as he read there, ’Evelyn Starr from John Starr, December 5th, 1855,’ and remembered when he had written that.  Still the shadows crept eastward, the mynas chattered in the garden, the scent of the roses came across warm in the sun.  The Rajputs looked at him curiously, but no one spoke.

The Colonel’s eyes were fixed upon Sunni’s face.  He made one or two efforts to speak that did not succeed.  Then ’And this is the baby,’ he said.

’Hazur, ha!’[1] replied Tooni, ‘Sonny Sahib hai!’

[1] ‘Your Honour, yes.  It is Sonny Sahib.’

The Colonel looked at Sunni an instant longer, and the boy smiled into his face.  ‘Yes,’ said he assuredly, with a deep breath, ’it is Sonny Sahib.’

’The woman saw your honour this morning, and the khaber was brought to me then,’ remarked the Maharajah complacently.

It was three weeks, after all, before the Maharajah of Chita was satisfactorily arranged.  For three weeks Thomas Jones indulged in roast kid and curry every day from Lalpore, and Lieutenant Pink, having no more warlike way of amusing himself, made sanguinary water-colour sketches of the city to send home to the Misses Pink in England.  The day came at last when Colonel Starr and Sonny Sahib went to pay their final respects to the Maharajah.  With his hand upon his son’s shoulder the Colonel turned once more after the last courtesy had been exchanged.