India -- History -- Sepoy Rebellion, 1857-1858 -- Fiction
"Thou sayest? Of a truth, bhatiyara, he must needs come to life again no
later than the morrow's sunrise, and those vile robbers must be pricked
in their hearts and restore the goods they have stolen, or assuredly the
Kotwal will come and visit this serai, and he will say, since it is so
ill a place for man and beast, it must be made desolate. What must be
will be."
"Hai! hai!" cried the man, lifting his hands, "how should a dead camel
breathe again the breath of life, and evil-doers become good?"
"Even these things are possible, good bhatiyara. And now let me eat, and
make ready a good charpoy. These things that I say shall come to pass
even while I sleep."
And his two fellow-guests laughed aloud, while the innkeeper muttered in
his beard.
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH
Wolf and Jackal
Next morning Ahmed found his camel contentedly munching at his stall,
with no visible diminution of his hump; and his bales of goods were
ranged in decent order along the walls, though when he came to examine
them he found that their contents were strangely mixed. But he said
nothing of that; he only expressed to the innkeeper his gratification
that the night had seen such wonders wrought, and after a simple
breakfast he went out and, hiring no coolie this time, took a few of his
more costly wares to visit his old friend the darwan of Minghal Khan.
Cordial greetings passed between them; the darwan had pleasant
recollections of the dainties with which he had been regaled by this
excellent Pathan at his former visit. Then he asked why his friend had
been so long in hiding the light of his countenance from him. Ahmed told
him that he had been ill, and made him laugh heartily at his story of
how the rascally innkeeper had brought a dead camel to life and restored
stolen goods in the space of one night.
"And now, good darwan," he said, "thinkest thou I might show some of my
wares to your noble master? My business has halted while I was sick, and
I must needs sell somewhat lest I starve."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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