"And what said the German officer, Shiva Lal?" "Nay, sahib, he said nothing." We also say nothing. For Shiva Lal needs but little encouragement to talk from sunset to cock-crow. Perhaps the unfortunate German officer divined as much. But the spell of Shiva Lal's eloquence is rudely broken by Major D----, who takes me by the arm to go elsewhere. And the little group squatting on their haunches at their mid-day meal cease listening and dip their _chupattis_ in the aromatic _dhal_, in that slow, ruminant, ritualistic way in which the Indian always eats his food. "_Ram, Ram! Tumhi kothun alle?_" said my friend Smith, turning aside to a lonely figure on my right. A cry of joy escapes a dark-featured Mahratta who has been looking mournfully on from his bed of pain, comprehending nothing of these dialogues. We have, indeed, been talking in every language except Mahrathi. And he, poor soul, has lost both feet--they were frostbitten--and will never answer the music of the charge again. But at the sound of his own tongue he raises his body by the pulley hanging at the head of his cot, and gravely salutes the sahib. Like Ruth amid the alien corn, his heart is sad with thoughts of home, and he has been dreaming between these iron walls of the wide, sunlit spaces of the Deccan. As his feverish brain counts and re-counts the rivets on the ship-plates, ever and anon they part before his wistful eyes, and he sees again the little village with its grove of mangoes and its sacred banyan on the inviolable _otla_; he hears once again the animated chatter of the wayfarers in the _chowdi_. "Where is thy home?" "Sahib, it is at Pirgaon." "I know it--is not Turkaran Patal the head-man?" The dark face gleams with pleasure. "Even so, sahib." "Shall I write to thy people?" "The sahib is very kind." "So will I do, and, perhaps, prepare thy people for thy homecoming. I will tell them that thou hast lost thy feet with the frostbite, but art otherwise well." "Nay, sahib, tell them everything but that, for if my people hear that they will neither eat nor drink--nay, nor sleep, for sorrow." "Then will I not. But I will tell them that thou art a brave man." The Mahratta smiles mournfully. "And have you heard from your folk at home?" I ask of the others, leaving Smith and the Mahratta together. "Yea, sahib, the exalted Government is very good to us. We get letters often." It is a sepoy in the 107th who speaks. "My brother writes even thus," and he reads with tears in his eyes: "'We miss you terribly, but such is the will of God. I have been daily to Haji Baba Ziarat' (it is a famous shrine in India), 'and day and night I pray for you, and am very distressed. I am writing to tell you to have no anxiety about us at home, but do your duty cheerfully and say your prayers. Repeat the beginning with the word "Kor" and breathe forty times on your body. Your father is well, but is very anxious for you, and weeps day and night.'"