The East has a hundred florid epithets for one used in the West; and in a land where water is as scarce as gold and far more precious the mention of water to a thirsty man calls forth a flood of thought such as only music or perhaps religion can produce in luckier climes.  Jaimihr waxed eloquent; more eloquent than even water might have made him had another—­had even another woman—­brought it.  He recognized her voice, and said things to her that roused all the anger that she knew.  She had not come to be made love to.

She thought, though, of his thirst.  She remembered that within an hour or two he might be raving for another reason and with other words.  The big beam lifted on her hands with barely more effort than was needed to lift up the water-jar; the door opened a little way, and she tried, while she passed the water in, to peer through the darkness at the prisoner.  But there were no windows to that cell, and such dim light as there was came from behind her.

“They have bound me, sahiba, in this corner,” groaned Jaimihr.  “I cannot reach it.  Take it away again!  The certainty that it is there and out of reach is too great torture!”

So she slipped in through the door, leaving it open a little way—­ both her hands busy with the brass pitcher and both eyes straining their utmost through the gloom—­advancing step by step through mouldy straw that might conceal a thousand horrors.

“You wonder, perhaps, why I do not escape!” said a voice.  And then she heard the cell door close again gently.

Now she could see Jaimihr, for he stood with his back against the door, and his head was between her and the little six-inch grating that was all the ventilation or light a prisoner in that place was allowed.

“So you lied to me, even when I brought you water?” she answered.  She was not afraid.  She had nerve enough left to pity him.

“Yes.  But I see that you did not lie.  I am still thirsty, sahiba.”

He held out both hands, and she could see them dimly.  There were no chains on them, and he was not bound in any way.  She gave him the jar.

“Let me pass out again before you drink,” she ordered.  “It is not known that I am in here, and I would not have it known.”

She could have bitten out her tongue with mortification a moment afterward for letting any such admission escape her.  She heard him chuckle as he drank—­he choked from chuckling, and set the jar down to cough.  Then, when he had recovered breath again, he answered almost patronizingly.

“Which would be least pleased with you, sahiba?  The Rangars, or thy father, or the other Englishman?  But never mind, sahiba, we are friends.  I have proved that we are friends.  Never have I taken water from the hands of any man or any woman not of my own caste.  I would have died sooner.  It was only thou, sahiba, who could make me set aside my caste.”