Page:ER Scidmore--Winter India.djvu/205

Rh well, madam. Very well. Very well," said the turban, flourishing his cane. After five minutes I repeated the order to turban tramping madly up and down the flagstones, cuffing coolies and bawling at every one and no one. "Very well, very well, madam," said this madman of Agra. Another appeal only pulled the string for another shower of "very wells," and nothing happened. I bade the bearer bring a gharry at once, and after big turban had beaten the air, beaten the bearer, and the two had screeched a mad dialogue, two lean horses and a rattletrap night-liner drew up and took us inside, the luggage on the roof, the turban on the box, and the bearer on behind. The ill-matched horses made a dash out from the lamplighted station, across the great common before Akbar's red sandstone fort, and took a turn entirely round a tree-box. After a second and a third turn around the tree, I put my head out and said severely, "Take us to the Hotel ." "Very well. Very well, madam," floated down from the box, and with a jerk and a leap the ponies made another tour of the tree. We continued to whirl and circle around that sapling by the light of a thin, wet moon, wrangling voices and whip-crackings from overhead drowning any further directions to drive to the hotel. Our friends, following in the next gharry, thought the first circlings a runaway; then, hearing the voices from the box, arrived at another idea, and cried: "Oh, come on to the hotel. It's no use trying to see the Taj now. It is after one o'clock."

Our answer was lost as the ponies ran around the