"Here, you, what comes?" the Captain queried, checking the grey.
The postie stopped in terror at the English voice.
"Salaam, Bahadur Sahib; it is war."
"Thou art a tree owl," and Barlow laughed. "A war does not spring up
like a drift of driven dust. Is it some raja's elephants and carts with
his harem going to a _durbar_?"
"Sahib, it is, as I have said, war. The big brass cannon that is called
'The Humbler of Cities,' goes forth to speak its order, and with it are
sepoys to feed it the food of destruction. Beyond that I know not,
Sahib, for I am a man of peace, being but a runner of the post."
Then he salaamed and sifted into the night gloom like a thrown handful of
white sand, echoing back the clamp-clamp-clamp of his staff's iron ring,
which was a signal to all cobras to move from the path of him who ran,
slip their chilled folds from the warm dust of the road.
And on in front what had been sounds of mystery was now a turmoil of
noises. The hissing screech, the wails, were the expostulations of
tortured axles; the rumbling boom was unexplainable; but the jungle of
the hillside was possessed of screaming devils.
Pages:
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126