I was glad then that the aged bawarchi (cook) had
thought it necessary (contrary to my ideas) to bring
dried tongue and a large tin of marmalade, also some
brown flour wherewith to make bread. I was quite
ready for my dinner when I reached the tents, the long
walk and the fact of but two scanty meals of tea taken
during the day having given an edge to my appetite, and
the appearance of my cook with both of his arms tied up
in coloured comforters did not exhilarate me. “ How
could he be expected to cook a dinner for the Presence,”
he asked, “ when there was no food, the waters were in
his cooking tent, when it was impossible to balance
kettle or cooking pot on the stones (his range was composed
of three small boulders and a bar), and both his
arms were useless from rheumatism, and his head confused
with fever ? ” When quite devoid of ideas it is
well to make no suggestions, so with finely veiled irony
I remarked that I would prepare for dinner, and perchance
a coolie could be found to arrange for the food.
I also noticed slightingly the position chosen for the
cooking pal—well down on the slope of the hill—and
passed to my little tent in serious doubts as to whether
I should not have to turn in to bed as the only method
of forgetting my hunger.
Twenty minutes later a discreet cough told me the
bearer was outside. “ The dinner was on the table,”
and under the dark trees stood a table as well covered
and daintily set out as if there had been no difficulties
in the preparation of my meal, no complainings, no
rheumatic arms to hinder progress. Having entered their
protest the “ naukar log ” had considered it would be
a covering of themselves with shame if I lacked for anything
I was accustomed to. A large bunch of iris faced
me at my small board, trails of clematis, picked low down
on the hillside, wound about the dimly sketched out
vacant places, for no native servant, however scanty
his store of serving wares, can set a table without a
suggestion of four places, the ghostly companions of
the master or mistress. Of the courses, their number
and variety has left no lasting impression; suffice it.
that, however unused the ingredients, the results were
excellent, and when savoury eggs of a new order had
been reached and there were still symptoms of more to
follow, I could only cry “ hold,” for I had partaken
largely of everything, fearing it might be the finale
of the menu. How much of that dinner was legitimately
mine, and how much had been filched from a small
encampment across the merg, whose owner had been
called away for two days, I never cared to consider.
I congratulated the cook, but he remained doubtful
of his future and was without confidence in the present
arrangement. “ The Memsahib must eat, therefore
there had been dinner, and who could cook but himself,
but there was certainty that on the morrow such a
climate would have consummated his final collapse, and
then the fate of all the camp would be but a matter of
hours.”
The prospect was dreary, but it was impossible to
be long depressed in such surroundings. A young moon
was hidden at times by rushing clouds, swept by the
fitful wind that, whistling among the trees low down
on the hillside, filled the air with a bustling murmur like
the roll of the distant sea. As the light shone clear,
or was overcast, so the merg was lost in deepest gloom,
or showed the rises and depressions that broke up the
surface. As night closed in, the breeze had a warmer