The grating went into its place. There was no
sign whatever from inside the house,—nothing
but the moonlight strip on the high wall, and the
blackness of Amir Nath’s Gully behind.
The next thing Trejago remembers, after raging and
shouting like a madman between those pitiless walls,
is that he found himself near the river as the dawn
was breaking, threw away his boorka and went
home bareheaded.
* * * *
*
What was the tragedy—whether Bisesa had,
in a fit of causeless despair, told everything, or
the intrigue had been discovered and she tortured to
tell; whether Durga Charan knew his name and what became
of Bisesa—Trejago does not know to this
day. Something horrible had happened, and the
thought of what it must have been, comes upon Trejago
in the night now and again, and keeps him company
till the morning. One special feature of the
case is that he does not know where lies the front
of Durga Charan’s house. It may open on
to a courtyard common to two or more houses, or it
may lie behind any one of the gates of Jitha Megji’s
bustee. Trejago cannot tell. He cannot
get Bisesa—poor little Bisesa—back
again. He has lost her in the City where each
man’s house is as guarded and as unknowable
as the grave; and the grating that opens into Amir
Nath’s Gully has been walled up.
But Trejago pays his calls regularly, and is reckoned
a very decent sort of man.
There is nothing peculiar about him, except a slight
stiffness, caused by a riding-strain, in the right
leg.
Hit a man an’ help a woman, an’ ye can’t
be far wrong anyways.—Maxims of Private
Mulvaney.
The Inexpressibles gave a ball. They borrowed
a seven-pounder from the Gunners, and wreathed it
with laurels, and made the dancing-floor plate-glass
and provided a supper, the like of which had never
been eaten before, and set two sentries at the door
of the room to hold the trays of programme-cards.
My friend, Private Mulvaney, was one of the sentries,
because he was the tallest man in the regiment.
When the dance was fairly started the sentries were
released, and Private Mulvaney went to curry favor
with the Mess Sergeant in charge of the supper.
Whether the Mess Sergeant gave or Mulvaney took, I
cannot say. All that I am certain of is that,
at supper-time, I found Mulvaney with Private Ortheris,
two-thirds of a ham, a loaf of bread, half a pate-de-foie-gras,
and two magnums of champagne, sitting on the roof
of my carriage. As I came up I heard him saying—
“Praise be a danst doesn’t come as often
as Ord’ly-room, or, by this an’ that,
Orth’ris, me son, I wud be the dishgrace av the
rig’mint instid av the brightest jool in uts
crown.”
“Hand the Colonel’s pet noosance,”
said Ortheris, “But wot makes you curse your
rations? This ’ere fizzy stuff’s good
enough.”
