The Story of Sonny Sahib | Page 5

he milked it Tooni sat upon the
ground, hugging her knees, and thought.
The memsahib had said nothing all this time, had known nothing. For
two days the memsahib had been, as Tooni would have said, without
sense--had lain on the bed in the corner quietly staring at the wall,
where the looking-glass hung, making no sign except when she heard
the Nana Sahib's guns. Then she sat up straight, and laughed very
prettily and sweetly. It was the salute, she thought in her fever; the
Viceroy was coming; there would be all sorts of gay doings in the
station. When the shell exploded that tore up the wall of the hut, she
asked Tooni for her new blue silk with the flounces, the one that had
been just sent out from England, and her kid slippers with the rosettes.
Tooni, wiping away her helpless tears with the edge of her head
covering, had said, 'Na, memsahib, na!' and stroked the hot hand that
pointed, and then the mistress had forgotten again. As to the little pink

baby, three days old, it blinked and throve and slept as if it had been
born in its father's house to luxury and rejoicing.
Tooni questioned the goat-keeper; but he had seen three sahibs killed
that morning, and was stupid with fear. He did not even know of the
Nana Sahib's order that the English were to be allowed to go away in
boats; and this was remarkable, because he lived in the bazar outside,
and in the bazar people generally know what is going to happen long
before the sahibs who live in the tall white houses do. Tooni had only
her own reflections.
There would be no more shooting, and the Nana Sahib would let them
all go away in boats; that was good khaber--good news. Tooni
wondered, as she put the baby's clothes together in one bundle, and her
own few possessions together in another, whether it was to be believed.
The Nana Sahib so hated the English; had not the guns spoken of his
hate these twenty-one days? Inside the walls many had died, but
outside the walls might not all die? The doctor had said that the Nana
Sahib had written it; but why should the Nana Sahib write the truth?
The Great Lord Sahib, the Viceroy, had sent no soldiers to compel him.
Nevertheless, Tooni packed what there was to pack, and soothed the
baby with a little goat's milk and water, and dressed her mistress as
well as she was able, according to the doctor's directions. Then she
went out to where old Abdul, the table-waiter, her husband, crouched
under a wall, and told him all that she knew and feared. But Abdul,
having heard no guns for nearly an hour and a half, was inclined to be
very brave, and said that without doubt they should all get safely to
Allahabad; and there, when the memsahib was better, they would find
the captain- sahib again, and he would give them many rupees
backsheesh for being faithful to her.
'The memsahib will never be better,' said Tooni, sorrowfully; 'her rice
is finished in the earth. The memsahib will die.'
She agreed to go to the ghat, though, and went back into the hut to wait
for the ox-cart while Abdul cooked a meal on the powder- blackened
ground with the last of the millet, and gave thanks to Allah.

There was no room for Tooni to ride when they started. She walked
alongside carrying the baby and its little bundle of clothes. There was
nothing else to carry, and that was fortunate, for the cart in which the
memsahib lay was too full of sick and wounded to hold anything more.
In Tooni's pocket a little black book swung to and fro; it was the
memsahib's book; and in the beginning of the firing, before the fever
came, Tooni had seen the memsahib reading it long and often. They
had not been killed in consequence, Tooni thought; there must be a
protecting charm in the little black book; so she slipped it into her
pocket. They left the looking-glass behind.
The ox-cart passed out creaking, in its turn, beyond the earthworks of
the English encampment into the city, where the mutinous natives
stood in sullen curious groups to watch the train go by. A hundred
yards through the narrow streets, choked with the smell of gunpowder
and populous with vultures, and Abdul heard a quick voice in his ear.
When he turned, none were speaking, but he recognised in the crowd
the lowering indifferent face of a sepoy he knew--one of the Nana
Sahib's servants. Saying nothing, he fell back for Tooni and laid his
hand upon her arm. And when the cart creaked out of the town