the camp. It was not so. I
saved him. It is about him that I want to speak to you."

The Parsee thought for a moment.

"Yes, there was a child. Its body was not found, and was supposed
to have been eaten by the jackals. Is it alive still?"

"Yes, sahib, I have brought him up as my own. His skin has been
always stained; and none but my brother--with whom I live--his
wife, and one other, know that he is English. I love him as my own
child. I have taught him English, as I speak it; but I want him, in
time, to be an English sahib, and for that he must learn proper
English."

"But why have you not brought him down here?" the Parsee said.

"Who would have looked after him, and cared for him, sahib, as I,
his nurse, have done? Who could have taken him? What would have
become of him? I am a poor woman, and do not know how these things
would be. I said to myself:

"'It will be better that he should live with me, till he is old
enough to go down as a young man, and say to the Governor:

"'"I am the son of Major Lindsay. I can talk Mahratti like a
native. I can ride and use my sword. I can speak English well. I
can be useful."

"'Then, perhaps for his father's sake, the Governor will say:

"'"I will make you an officer. If there are troubles in the Deccan,
you will be more useful than those sahibs who do not know the
language."'

"I can do all that for him, but I cannot teach him to speak as
English sahibs speak; and that is why I have come to you. You have
twelve hundred rupees of mine, in your hands; for I laid out
nothing while I was in the sahib's service, and my mistress was
very kind, and often gave me presents. My brother, Ramdass, had
five hundred rupees saved; and this he has given to me, for he,
too, loves the boy. Thus there are seventeen hundred rupees, and
this I would pay for him to be, for two years, with someone where
he would learn to speak English as sahibs do, so that none can say
this white boy is not English.

"Then he will go back, for two or three years, to Jooneer. He will
learn to use his arms, and to ride, and to be a man, until he is of
an age to come down and say:

"'I am the son of Major Lindsay.'"

"But if you were to tell this, at once," the Parsee said, "they
would doubtless send him home, to England, to be educated."

"And what would he do there, sahib? He would have no friends, none
to care for him; and while his Mahratti tongue would be of great
service to him, here, it would