“God be praised, sir,” he said with a show of feeling. “We ’ave got her back. I
think her mother would ’ave died if we ’ad come back again without her,—but,
O my little darlin’, you look cruel bad. Drugged, sir, that’s what she is. Drugged
to keep ’er quiet and save food. The blag’ard!”
“But what did he take her for?” I asked.
“Bless you, sir,” replied the corporal, “she was his stock in trade. I reckon she’s
drawn many dibs out of other people’s pockets that would ’ave been nestlin’
there to-day if it ’adn’t ’a’ bin for ’er.”
Then a broad grin broke over his ruddy features, and he looked at me
quizzically.
“But ’e was a great play hactor, sir.”
“And a poet,” I added enthusiastically.
“’E could beat Kipling romancin’, sir.” He checked himself, as though ashamed
of awarding such meed of praise to his ex-colleague.
“But we must be goin’; orders strict. With your permission, sir, I will leave her
with a guard of one man for to-night, and send the ambulance for her in the
morning.”
He drew up his little file, saluted, and marched out into the rain and wind, with
all the cheerfulness of a duck.
I could hear them singing as they crossed the compound and struck into the
jungle road:—
“Oh, it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, go
away’;
But it’s ‘Thank you, Mister Atkins,’ when the band
begins to play,
The band begins to—”A peal of thunder that shook the bungalow from its attap roof to its nebong