"
Then he switched the torture--made it more acute; wanted to know what
Sirdar Baptiste had got them for.
The Frenchman fumed inwardly. Nana Sahib was at the bottom of the
whole murderous scheme, and here, like holding a match over a keg of
powder, he must talk about it in front of the Englishman.
When the brandy was brought Nana Sahib put hand over the top of his
glass.
"Not drinking, Prince?" Barlow asked.
"No," Nana Sahib answered, "a Brahmin must diet; holiness is fostered
by a shrivelled skin."
"But pardon me, Prince," Barlow said hesitatingly, "didn't going across
the black-water to England break your caste anyway--so why cut out the
peg?"
"Yes, Captain Sahib,"--the Prince's voice rasped with a peculiar harsh
gravity as though it were drawn over the jagged edge of intense
feeling,--"my caste _was_ broken, and to get it back I drank the dregs;
a cup of liquid from the cow, and not milk either!"
Baptiste coughed uneasily for he saw in the eyes of Nana Sahib
smouldering passion.
And Barlow's face was suffused with a sudden flush of embarrassment.
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