But as to his seeing the prisoner, and having speech with
the man-eaters--the Hajji breathed all that on his forehead to
sink into his sick brain. A little, as ye have heard, has
remained . . . . Ah, but when the fever broke, and our Sahib
called for the fine-book, and the thin little picture-books from
Europe with the pictures of ploughs and hoes, and
cotton=3Dmills--ah, then he laughed as he used to laugh, Sahib.
It was his heart's desire, this cotton-play. The Hajji loved him,
as who does not? It was a little, little arrangement, Sahib, of
which--is it necessary to tell all the world?"
"And when didst thou know who the Hajji was?" said Strickland.
"Not for a certainty till he and our Sahib had returned from
their visit to the Sheshaheli country. It is quite true as our
Sahib says, the man-eaters lay, flat around his feet, and asked
for spades to cultivate cotton. That very night, when I was
cooking the dinner, the Hajji said to me: 'I go to my own place,
though God knows whether the Man with the Stone Eyes have left me
an ox, a slave, or a woman.
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