Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-11-24

fire and camped round it in the com
pound-a circumstance which furnished
food for thought.
Amber began to suspect that the troops
had been furnished as guard less OF
honor than of espionage. less in formal
courtesy than in demonstration OF the
| unsleeping vigilance of the Eye-kindiy
assisted by the Maharana of khandawar.
a man who. warmed by the ardor Oh
his first love. feels suddenly the shadow
of death falling cold upon him. is apt 10
neglect nothing. Amber considered that
he had given Ram .Nath no commission
of any sort. and bent an attentive ear TO
the communication which the tonga
waIlah insisted upon making to him.
Ram Nath had returned. he asserted,
solely for the purpose of informing Am
Der in accordance with his desires. THE
| telegraph office for which you inquired.
sahb, stands just within the Gateway of
| the Elephants he announced. The tele-
| graph ba bu will be on duty very early in
the morning, should you desire still to
| send the message.
"Oh, yes said Amber, indifferently.
I'D forgotten. Thanks"
| He returned to his charpoy with spir-
it's considerably higher. Ram Nath had
not winked this time, but the fact was
| indisputabie that Amber had not eX-
pressed any interest whatever in the To-
cation of the telegraph office.
Wondering if the telegraph-babu by any
chance wore pink satin. he dozed off on
! the decision that he would need to send
| message the first thing In the morning.
Some time later he was second time
| awakened by further dsputation in the
| compound. The troopers were squabbling
among themselves; he was able to make
] this much out i'm spite of the fact that
the sepoys, recruited exclusively from the
native population of Khandawar. spoke a
| patois of Hindu corrupt that even an
| expert in oriental languages would eX-
perience difficulty in trying to interpret
| n VT
the task but presently lifted up his voice
| and demanded silence, desiring to be in
| formed If his sleep was to be continually
! broken by the chickering's of sons OF moth
| ers without noses. There followed in
Simultaneous silence, broken by chuckle
and an applausive "Shabash. and moth
ing more.
Amber Struggled down again upon his
pillow and soothed himself with the feel
of the pistol that his fingers grasped De-
| meath the clothes.
! bar of moonlight slipped through the
| blinds and fell athwart his eyes. He
cursed it bitterly and got up and moved
| his charpoy into shadow. The sibilant
! lisping of the wavelets against the puma
sang him softly toward oblivion
and convention of water fowl went IN
to stormy executive session out in the
middle of the lake. This had to be en-
dured and in time Amber's senses grew
numb to the racket and he dropped on
! into a fitful doze.
FOOTBALLS and hushed voices in the bun
gaIow were responsible for the next IN
| terruption. Amber came to with start
and found himself sitting up on the edge
of the charpoy. with a dreamy impression
| THAT two people had been standing over
him and had just left the room. escaping
by way of the khansamah's quarters He
rubbed the sleep from his eyes and Went
out to demonstrate vigorously with the
| khansamah. The latter naturally pro-
| fessed complete ignorance of the vista
ton and dwelt with such insistence upon
the plausibility of dreams that Amber
lost patience and kicked him grievously,
so that he complained with loud voice
and cast himself at the sahib's feet, de-
| claring that he was but as the dust be
meath them and that Amber was his
father and mother and the light of the
universe besides. In short, he raised such
rumpus that some of the sepoys came
in to investigate and-went out again
| hastily, to testify to their fellows that
the hazoor was a man of fluent wrath,
surprisingly versed in the art and prac-
| tice of abuse.
| ITO be continued tomorrow