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 also became of the opinion
that there need be no haste in going.
Sonny Sahib grew out of the arms and necks of his long embroidered
night dresses and day dresses almost immediately, and then there
was a difficulty, which Tooni surmounted by cutting the waists off
entirely and gathering the skirts round the baby's neck with a
drawing string, making holes in the sides for his arms to come
through. Tooni bought him herself a little blue and gold Mussulman
cap in the bazar. The captain-sahib would be angry, but then the
captain-sahib was very far away, killed perhaps, and Tooni thought
the blue and gold cap wonderfully becoming to Sonny Sahib.
Pages:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32