I'll be
drawn;--my leg'll be pulled." And he reflected bitterly that nothing
on earth, no protestation, no swearing by the gods, would make it
believed as being what it was. He chuckled once, picturing the face of
the immaculate Elizabeth while she thrust into him a bodkin of moral
autopsy, should she come to know of it.
Bootea thought he had sighed, and laying her slim fingers against his
neck said, "The Sahib is troubled."
"I don't care a damn!" he declared in English, his mind still on the
personal trail.
Seeing that she, not understanding, had taken the sharp tone as a
rebuke, he said, "If I had been alone, Gulab, I'd have been troubled
sorely, but perhaps the gods have sent you to help out."
"Ah, yes, God pulled our paths together. And if Bootea is but a
sacrifice that will be a favour, she is happy."
If the girl had been of a white race, in her abandon of love she would
have laid her lips against his, but the women of Hind do not kiss.
The big plate of burnished silver slid, as if pushed by celestial
fingers, across the azure dome toward the loomed walls of the Ghats
that it would cross to dip into the sea, the Indian Ocean, and mile
upon mile was picked from the front and laid behind by the grey as he
strode with untiring swing toward his bed that waited on the high
plateau of Poona.
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