to
the tax-gatherers of the Maharajah.' Tooni always agreed, and when
the khaber came that all the memsahibs and the children had been
killed by the sepoys, she agreed weeping. They were always so kind
and gentle, the memsahibs, and the little ones, the babalok--the
babalok! Surely the sepoys had become like the tiger-folk. Then
she picked up Sonny Sahib and held him tighter than he liked. She
had crooned with patient smiles over many of the babalok in her
day, but from beginning to end, never a baba like this. So strong
he was, he could make old Abdul cry out, pulling at his beard, so
sweet-tempered and healthy that he would sleep just where he was
put down, like other babies of Rubbulgurh. Tooni grieved deeply
that she could not give him a bottle, and a coral, and a
perambulator, and often wondered that he consented to thrive
without these things, but the fact remains that he did. He even
allowed himself to be oiled all over occasionally for the good of
his health, which was forbearing in a British baby. And always
when Abdul shook his finger at him and said--

'Gorah pah howdah, hathi pah JEEN!
Jeldi bag-gia, Warren HasTEEN!'[3]

he laughed and crowed as if he quite understood the joke.

[3] 'Howdahs on horses, on elephants JEEN!
He ran away quickly did Warren HasTEEN!'

'Jeen' means 'saddles,' but nobody could make that rhyme! Popular
incident of an English retreat in Hastings' time.

Tooni had no children of her own, and wondered how long it would be
before she and Abdul must go again to Cawnpore to find the baby's
father. There need be no hurry, Tooni thought, as Sonny Sahib
played with the big silver hoops in her ears, and tried to kick
himself over her shoulder. Abdul calculated the number of rupees
that would be a suitable reward for taking care of a baby for six
months, found it considerable, and said they ought to start at
once. Then other news came--gathering terror from mouth to mouth
as it crossed Rajputana--and Abdul told his wife one evening, after
she had put Sonny Sahib to sleep with a hymn to Israfil, that a
million of English soldiers had come upon Cawnpore, and in their
hundredfold revenge had left neither Mussulman nor Hindoo alive in
the city--also that the Great Lord Sahib had ordered the head of
every kala admi, every black man, to be taken to build a bridge
across the Ganges with, so that hereafter his people might leave
Cawnpore by another way. Then Abdul