he laughed and crowed as if he quite understood the joke.


[1] 'Howdahs on horses, on elephants JEEN!
He ran away quickly did Warren HasTEEN!'

'Jeen' means 'saddles,' but nobody could make that rhyme! Popular
incident of an English retreat in Hastings' time.


Tooni had no children of her own, and wondered how long it would be
before she and Abdul must go again to Cawnpore to find the baby's
father. There need be no hurry, Tooni thought, as Sonny Sahib
played with the big silver hoops in her ears, and tried to kick
himself over her shoulder. Abdul calculated the number of rupees
that would be a suitable reward for taking care of a baby for six
months, found it considerable, and said they ought to start at
once. Then other news came--gathering terror from mouth to mouth
as it crossed Rajputana--and Abdul told his wife one evening, after
she had put Sonny Sahib to sleep with a hymn to Israfil, that a
million of English soldiers had come upon Cawnpore, and in their
hundredfold revenge had left neither Mussulman nor Hindoo alive in
the city--also that the Great Lord Sahib had ordered the head of
every kala admi, every black man, to be taken to build a bridge
across the Ganges with, so that hereafter his people might leave
Cawnpore by another way. Then Abdul also became of the opinion
that there need be no haste in going.

Sonny Sahib grew out of the arms and necks of his long embroidered
night dresses and day dresses almost immediately, and then there