Winds of the World | Page 8

heel.
Then he stalked out of the room, with a slight bow to Yasmini as he
passed.
"Buffalo!" she murmured after him. "Jat buffalo!"
Then the Germans went away, after some heavy compliments that
seemed to amuse Yasmini prodigiously, helping along the man who
had drunk sherbet and who now seemed inclined to weep. They
dragged him down the stairs between them, backward. Yasmini waited
at the stair--head until she heard them pull him into a gharri and drive
away. Then she turned to her favorite maid.
"Them--those cattle--I understand!" she said. "But it does not suit me
that a Sikh, a Jat, a buffalo, should come here making mysteries of his
own without consulting me! And what does not suit me I do not
tolerate! Go, get that Afridi whom the soldier kicked--I told him to wait
outside in the street until I sent for him."
The Afridi came, nearly as helpless as the man who had drunk sherbet,
though less tearful and almost infinitely more resentful. What clothing
had not been torn from him was soaked in blood, and there was no inch
of him that was not bruised.
"Krishna!" said Yasmini impiously.
"Allah!" swore the Afridi.
"Who did it? What has happened?"
"Outside in the street I said to some men who waited that Ranjoor

Singh the Sikh is a bastard. From then until now they beat me, only
leaving off to follow him hence when he came out through the door!"
Yasmini laughed, peal upon peal of silver laughter--of sheer merriment.
"The gods love Yasmini!" she chuckled. "Aye, the gods love me! The
Jat spoke of a squadron; it is evident that he spoke truth. So his
squadron watched him here! Go, _jungli_! Go, wash the blood away.
Thou shalt have revenge! Come again to--morrow. Nay, go now, I
would sleep when I have finished laughing. Aye--the gods love
Yasmini!"
The West Wind blows through the Ajmere Gate And whispers low (Oh,
listen ye!), "The fed wolf curls by his drowsy mate In a tight--trod earth;
but the lean wolves wait, And the hunger gnaws!" (Oh, listen ye!) "Can
fed wolves fight? But yestere'en Their eyes were bright, their fangs
were clean; They viewed, they took but yestere'en," (Oh, listen, wise
heads, listen ye!) "Because they fed, is blood less red, Or fangs less
sharp, or hunger dead?" (Look well to the loot, and listen ye!)
YASMINI'S SONG

CHAPTER III
The colonel of Outram's Own dropped into a club where he was only
one, and not the greatest, of many men entitled to respect. There were
three men talking by a window, their voices drowned by the din of rain
on the veranda roof, each of whom nodded to him. He chose, however,
a solitary chair, for, though subalterns do not believe it, a colonel has
exactly that diffidence about approaching senior civilians which a
subaltern ought to feel.
In a moment all that was visible of him from the door was a pair of
brown riding-boots, very much fore-shortened, resting on the long arm
of a cane chair, and two sets of wonderfully modeled fingers that held
up a newspaper. From the window where the three men talked he could

be seen in profile.
"Wears well--doesn't he?" said one of them.
"Swears well, too, confound him!"
"Hah! Been trying to pump him, eh?"
"Yes. He's like a big bird catching flies--picks off your questions one at
a time, with one eye on you and the other one cocked for the next
question. Get nothing out of him but yes or no. Good fellow, though,
when you're not drawing him."
"You mean trying to draw him. He's the best that come. Wish they were
all like Kirby."
The man who had not spoken yet--he looked younger, was some years
older, and watched the faces of the other two while seeming to listen to
something in the distance--looked at a cheap watch nervously.
"Wish the Sikhs were all like Kirby!" he said. "If this business comes to
a head, we're going to wish we had a million Kirbys. What did he say?
Temper of his men excellent, I suppose?"
"Used that one word." "Um-m-m! No suspicions, eh?" "Said, 'No, no
suspicions!'" "Uh! I'll have a word with him." He waddled off, shaking
his drab silk suit into shape and twisting a leather watch-guard around
his finger.
"Believe it will come to anything?" asked one of the two men he had
left behind.
"Dunno. Hope not. Awful business if it does."
"Remember how we were promised a world-war two years ago, just
before the Balkans took fire?"
"Yes. That was a near thing, too. But they weren't quite ready then.
Now they are ready, and they think we're not. If I were asked, I'd say

we ought to let them