The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Then Unnia told how the Nawab had paid Kurreim Khan blood-money, because
Shumsh-ud-deen did so hate Fraser Sahib. Whereupon Metcalfe Sahib, a
little naked fellow, just the color of an old mahogany table, sent his
sepoys and had the Nawab dragged, in all his ragged breech-cloth glory,
to the bar of Sahib justice. In about three minutes, the Nawab was
condemned to die,--condemned to be hung by an outcast sweeper. But, in
consideration of his exalted rank, they consented that he should wear
his slippers, and ride to the place of execution, smoking his hookah;
and Mungloo acknowledged the Sahib's magnanimity by proudly inclining
his head, like a true Nawab, with a dignified "_Acha!"_ Then two members
of the court-martial, who lived nearest at hand, ran home, and quickly
returned, one with his father's slippers, the other with his mother's
hubble-bubble; and having tied the slippers, that were a world too big,
on Mungloo's little feet, and lighted the hubble-bubble, that he
might smoke, they mounted him on a buffalo, captured from the village
_hurkaru_, who happened, just in the nick of time, to come riding by, on
his way to Delhi, with the mail. And they led out the prisoner, smoking
his hubble-bubble,--and looking, as Metcalfe Sahib said of the real
Nawab, "as if he had been accustomed to be hanged every day of his
life,"--to the place of execution, an old saul-tree with low limbs.
Then, having taken the rope with which the hurkaru's mail-bag was lashed
to his buffalo, they slipped a noose over the Nawab's head, made the
other end fast to the lower limb of the saul-tree, and led away the
buffalo.
Little Mungloo, who was cunning as a Thug, acted with surprising talent;
in fact, some of the Sahibs thought he rather overdid his part, for he
dropped his hubble-bubble almost awkwardly, and even kicked,--which the
real Nawab had too much self-respect to do,--so that he sent one of
his slippers flying one way, and the other another. But he choked, and
gasped, and showed the whites of his eyes, and turned black in the face,
and shivered through all his frame, so very naturally, that his admiring
companions clapped their hands vehemently, and cried, _Wah, wah!_ with
all their little lungs. _Wah, wah!_ they screamed,--_Wah khoob tamasha
kurta hi! Phir kello, Mungloo! Bahoot ucchi-turri nuhkul, kurte ho
toom!_ "Bravo! Bravo! Such fun! Do it again, Mungloo,--do it again! it
takes you!" Certainly Mungloo did it to the life,--for he was dead.
* * * * *
To conclude now with a specimen of the tales with which the native
story-tellers entertain little heathens on street-corners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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