'Great thanks to you, Tooni-
ji,' he said softly into the darkness of the hut. 'When I find my
own country I will come back and take you there too. And while I
am gone Moti will love you, Tooni-ji. Peace be to you!'
Mar Singh was still awake when Sunni re-entered the palace. The
wind had come, he said. Sleep would rest upon the eyelids of
Sunni-ji in the south balcony.
It was a curious little place, the south balcony, really not a
balcony at all, but a round-pillared pavilion with a roof that
jutted out above the city wall. It hung over a garden too, rather
a cramped garden, the wall and the river came so close, and one
that had been left a good deal to take care of itself. Some fine
pipal-trees grew in it though, one of them towered within three
feet of the balcony, while the lower branches overspread the city
wall. All day long the green parrakeets flashed in and out of the
pipal-trees, screaming and chattering, while the river wound blue
among the yellow sands outside the wall; but to-night the only
sound in them was the whispering of the leaves as the south wind
passed, and both the river and the sands lay silver gray in the
starlight. Sunni, lying full length upon the balcony, listened
with all his might. From the courtyard, away round to the right
where the stables were, came a pony's neigh, and Sunni, as he heard
it once--twice--thrice--felt his eyes fill with tears.
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