"Who is your wughyra, your officer?" said I; and one of the men stepped out. "I am he, may it please your nobility, and I can wink at an honest fellow's doings as well as another." "Provided you are paid for it," said I. "Of course," said he, laughing; "we are lucky when chance throws gentlemen like you in our way." "Here then," said I, "are five rupees, to entertain yourselves with; and see that you don't get drunk, or the blame will fall on us." "May your condescension increase!" cried the whole; "we are your worship's devoted servants." "Now how do you mean to get out?" asked Bhudrinath as we passed on. "Not this way," said I, "if I can help it, for there will be a disturbance about the matter; and if we go out here it will give a clue to our discovery. We will try the other gate first." "I will lay a wager they are all drunk in an hour," said he, "and we may then open the gate for ourselves; but here is the Bhutteara's shop, and those kabobs smell very savoury; I sometimes wish I was not a Brahmin, that I might eat them as you do." "Ah," said I, "it is well for you to say that; but perhaps they may have proved too tempting at some time or other." "By Krishna! I swear you wrong me," cried he; "Brahmin I am, and will be; you know my creed tells me that I have been successively transformed through every grade of suffering humanity, and now that I have reached the top, I am not such a fool as to descend to the bottom and undergo the whole pain over again for the sake of a few kabobs." "You are right," said I; "nevertheless I will try them; I could not eat when I wished at my tent, but their smell has raised my appetite wonderfully." And in a short time my fingers were pretty deep in a smoking dish of kicheree and kabobs, as hot as pepper could make them. "Friend Bhutteara," said I when I had done, "surely the Shitan himself must visit your shop now and then, for no other could eat those scraps of meat, except he had a mouth of brass." "I beg pardon," said the fellow, "but I was away on business, and I suspect my daughter must, as you say, have put too much pepper in them; but I can make my lord a cup of sherbet, a poor imitation of what true believers will drink in Paradise, and it will cool his mouth." "And a hookah, if you please," said I, "then I shall feel more comfortable." CHAPTER X. I heard the Bhutteara bustling about in the interior of his house for a while, and was gratified to see that he so evidently exerted himself to please me. In a short time more the sherbet was prepared, and its grateful coolness, with the rose-water which had been mingled with it, allayed the irritation of my mouth, and enabled me to enjoy a hookah, which, if served in a less costly apparatus than that the Nuwab had offered me, was as good in flavour: its pleasing fumes composed me, and quieted the feverish excitement I had hitherto been in. "You appear comfortable," said Bhudrinath.