Page:In Black and White - Kipling (1890).djvu/87

 —he pointed to his two servants. "But from the beginning to to-day I would cut the throats of all the Sahibs in the land if I could. Hold me fast Sahib, lest I get away and return to those who would follow me. I forgot them when I was in Burma, but now that I am in my own country again I remember everything."

"Do you remember that you have given me your Honour not to make your tendance a hard matter?" said the Subaltern.

"Yes, to you, only to you, Sahib" said Khem Singh. "To you because you are of a pleasant countenance. If my turn comes again, Sahib, I will not hang you nor cut your throat."

"Thank you," said the Subaltern gravely as he looked along the line of guns that could pound the City to powder in half an hour. "Let us go in to our own quarters, Khem Singh. Come and talk with me after dinner."

Khem Singh would sit on his own cushion at the Subaltern's feet, drinking heavy, scented aniseed brandy in great gulps, and telling strange stories of Fort Amara, which had been a palace in the old days, of Begums and Ranees tortured to death—ay, in the very vaulted chamber that now served as a Mess room; would tell stories of Sobraon that made the Subaltern's cheeks flush and tingle with pride of race, and of the Kuka rising from which so much was expected and the foreknowledge of which was shared by a hundred thousand souls. But he never told tales of '57 because, as he said, he was the Subaltern's guest, and '57 is a year that no man Black or White, cares to speak of. Once only, when the aniseed brandy had slightly affected his head, he said:—"Sahib, speaking now of a matter which lay between Sabraon and the affair of the Kukas, it was ever a wonder to us that you stayed your hand at all, and that, having stayed it, you did not make the land one prison. Now I hear from without that you do great honour to all men of our country and by your own hands are destroying the Terror of your Name which is your strong rock and defence. This is a foolish thing. Will oil and water mix? Now in '57"—