Chapter 7 - Page 2

forward accordingly to a place from which I had a
clear view upon the house. It was surrounded with a wide verandah;
a lamp, very well trimmed, stood upon the floor of it, and on
either side of the lamp there sat a man, cross-legged, after the
Oriental manner. Both, besides, were bundled up in muslin like two
natives; and yet one of them was not only a white man, but a man
very well known to me and the reader, being indeed that very Master
of Ballantrae of whose gallantry and genius I have had to speak so
often. Word had reached me that he was come to the Indies, though
we had never met at least, and I heard little of his occupations.
But, sure, I had no sooner recognised him, and found myself in the
arms of so old a comrade, than I supposed my tribulations were
quite done. I stepped plainly forth into the light of the moon,
which shone exceeding strong, and hailing Ballantrae by name, made
him in a few words master of my grievous situation. He turned,
started the least thing in the world, looked me fair in the face
while I was speaking, and when I had done addressed himself to his
companion in the barbarous native dialect. The second person, who
was of an extraordinary delicate appearance, with legs like walking
canes and fingers like the stalk of a tobacco pipe, (6) now rose to
his feet.

"The Sahib," says he, "understands no English language. I
understand it myself, and I see you make some small mistake - oh!
which may happen very often. But the Sahib would be glad to know
how you come in a garden."

"Ballantrae!" I cried, "have you the damned impudence to deny me to
my face?"

Ballantrae never moved a muscle, staring at me like an image in a
pagoda.

"The Sahib understands no English language," says the native, as
glib as before. "He be glad to know how you come in a garden."

"Oh! the divil fetch him," says I. "He would be glad to know how I
come in a garden, would he? Well, now, my dear man, just have the
civility to tell the Sahib, with my kind love, that we are two
soldiers here whom he never met and never heard of, but the cipaye
is a broth of a boy, and I am a broth of a boy myself; and if we
don't get a full meal of meat, and a turban, and slippers, and the
value of a gold mohur in small change as a matter of convenience,
bedad, my friend, I could lay my finger on a garden where there is
going to be trouble."

They carried their comedy so far as to converse awhile in
Hindustanee; and then says the Hindu, with the same smile, but
sighing as if he were tired of the repetition, "The Sahib would be
glad to know how you come in a garden."

"Is that the way of