‘Sonny Sahib!’ quavered the old woman hoarsely, ’what have I to give you?  Dil kushi,[1] I have nothing.’

[1] ‘Heart’s delight.’

’What from fear you have never given up, nor burnt, nor thrown away,’ said Sunni, firmly; ’what you said false words to ee-Wobbis about, when you told him it had been stolen from you.  My little black book, with my God in it.’

‘Hazur!  I have it not.’

‘Give it to me,’ said Sunni.

The old woman raised herself in the bed.  ’A sahib’s promise is written in gold,’ said she; ’promise that the Maharajah shall never know.’

‘He shall never know,’ said Sunni.

Tooni felt her way to the side of the hut; then her hand fumbled along the top of the wall; it seemed to Sunni for an interminable time.  At a certain place she parted the thatch and put her hand into it with a little rustling that Sunni thought might be heard in the very heart of the palace.  Then she drew out a small, tight sewn, oilskin bag, that had taken the shape of the book inside it, groped across the hut again, and gave it to Sunni.  The boy’s hand trembled as he took it, and without a word he slipped into the darkness outside.

Then he stopped short and went back.  ’Great thanks to you, Tooni-ji,’ he said softly into the darkness of the hut.  ’When I find my own country I will come back and take you there too.  And while I am gone Moti will love you, Tooni-ji.  Peace be to you!’

Mar Singh was still awake when Sunni re-entered the palace.  The wind had come, he said.  Sleep would rest upon the eyelids of Sunni-ji in the south balcony.

It was a curious little place, the south balcony, really not a balcony at all, but a round-pillared pavilion with a roof that jutted out above the city wall.  It hung over a garden too, rather a cramped garden, the wall and the river came so close, and one that had been left a good deal to take care of itself.  Some fine pipal-trees grew in it though, one of them towered within three feet of the balcony, while the lower branches overspread the city wall.  All day long the green parrakeets flashed in and out of the pipal-trees, screaming and chattering, while the river wound blue among the yellow sands outside the wall; but to-night the only sound in them was the whispering of the leaves as the south wind passed, and both the river and the sands lay silver gray in the starlight.  Sunni, lying full length upon the balcony, listened with all his might.  From the courtyard, away round to the right where the stables were, came a pony’s neigh, and Sunni, as he heard it once—­twice—­thrice—­felt his eyes fill with tears.  It was the voice of his pony, of his ‘Dhooplal,’ his ‘red sunlight,’ and, he would never ride Dhooplal again.  The south breeze brought no other sound, the palace stretched on either side of him dark and still, a sweet heavy fragrance from a frangipanni-tree in the garden floated up, and that was all.  Sunni looked across the river, and saw that a group of palms on the other side was beginning to stand distinctly against the sky.  Then he remembered that he must make haste.