said Ommony, pausing, looking obstinate, "he is either my friend, or he isn't. He has every reason to be frank with me. He has chosen the other line. All right."
"All wrong!" she answered, chuckling. "In that letter, in his own way, he invited you to trust him."
"I don't!" remarked Ommony, shutting his jaws with a snap that could be heard across the room.
He refused to explain himself. He was not quite sure he could have done that, but had no inclination to try. If he had opened his lips it would have been to invite McGregor to throw a plain -clothes cordon around that house at the end of the courtyard, search the place and expose its secrets.
Habitual self-control alone prevented that. Twenty years of living courteously in a conquered country, making full allowance for the feelings of those who must look to him for justice, had bred a restraint that ill-temper could not overthrow. But he did not dare to let himself speak just then. He preferred to be rude—took up a book and began reading.
Mrs. Cornock-Campbell went on playing. John McGregor smoked in silence, pulling out the Lama's letter, reading it over and over, trying to discover hidden meanings. So more than an hour went by with hardly a word spoken, and it was long after midnight when the wheels of McGregor's returning dog-cart skidded on the loose gravel of the drive at the rear of the house and Diana awoke on the porch to tell the moon about it.
Dawa Tsering was admitted through the back door and shepherded in by the butler, who held his nose, but who was not otherwise so lacking in appreciation as to shut the door tight when he left the room. Ommony strode to the door, opened it wide, looked into the frightened eyes of the Goanese and watched him until he disappeared through a swinging door at the end of the passage.
"Now," he said, shutting the door tight behind him.
"The Lama is gone!" Dawa Tsering announced dramatically. "If I had had my knife I would have slain the impudent devil who gave me the news! Tripe out of the belly of a pig is his countenance! Eggs are his eyes! He is a ragyaba!* "
"The son of evil pretended not to know me! When I offered him the letter for the Lama he growled that Tsiang Samdup and his chela had gone elsewhere. When I bade him let me in, that I might see for myself, he answered ignorantly."
"Ignorantly? How do you mean?"
"He struck me with a bucket, of which the contents were garbage unsuitable to a man of my distinction. So I crowned him with the bucket—thus—not gently—and his head went through the bottom of the thing, so that, as it were, he wore a helmet full of smells and could no longer see. So then I smote him in the belly with my fist—thus—and with my foot—thus—as he fell. And then I came away. And there is the letter. Smell it. Behold the dirt on it, in proof I lie not. Now give me my knife, Ommonee."
Ommony went into the hall and produced the "knife" from behind the hat-rack. Dawa Tsering thumbed the edge of the blade lovingly before thrusting the weapon into its leather scabbard inside his shirt.
"Now I am a man again," he said devoutly. "They would better avoid me with their buckets full of filth!"
Ommony studied him in silence for a moment. "Did you ever have a bath?" he asked curiously.
"Aye. Tsiang Samdup and his chela made me take one whenever they happened to think fit. That is how I know they are not especially holy. There is something heretical about them that I do not understand."
"I am worse than they," said Ommony.
"No doubt. They have their good points."
"I have none! You must wash yourself as often as I tell you, and I shall give the order oftener than they did! From now on, you are my servant."
"But who says so?"
"I do."
"You desire me?"
"No, because I already have you. I can dispose of you as I see fit," said Ommony. "I can send you to the jail for killings and for train-robberies, and for trying to murder me this afternoon. Or I can bid you work out the score in other ways."
"That is true, more or less. Yes, there is something in what you say, Ommonee."
"It is not more or less true. It is quite true."
"How so? Have I not my knife? Would you like to fight me? I can slay that she-dog of thine as easily as I can lay thy bowels on the floor."
"No," said Ommony, "no honorable man could do that to his master. Are you not an honorable man?"
"None more so!"
"And I am your master, so that settles it."
Dawa Tsering looked puzzled; there was something in the reasoning that escaped him. But it is what men do not understand that binds them to others' chariot wheels.
"Well—I do not wish to return to Spiti—yet," he said reflectively. "But about the bath—how often? Besides, it is contrary to my religion, now I come to think of it."
"Change your religion, then. Now no more argument. Which way has the Lama gone?"
"Oh, as to that—I suppose I could discover that. How much will you pay me?"
"Thirty rupees a month, clean clothing, two blankets and your food."
"That is almost no pay at all," said Dawa Tsering. "To make a profit at that rate, I should have to eat so much that my belly would be at risk of bursting. There is discomfort in so much eating."
"They would give you enough to eat and no more, without money, in the jail," said Ommony, "and you would have to obey a babu, and be shaved by a contractor, and make mats without reward. And if you were very well behaved, they would let you rake the head jemadar's garden. Moreover, Tin Lal, who is also in the jail, would mock you at no risk to himself, since you would have no knife; and because he is clever and malignant he would constantly get you into trouble, laughing when you were punished. And since he is only in the jail for a short time, and you would be in for a long time, there would be no remedy. However, suit yourself."
"You are a hard man, Ommonee!"
"I am. I have warned you."
"Oh, well: I suppose it is better so. A soft knife is quickly dulled, and men are the same way. Yielding men are not dependable. Pay me a month's wages in advance, and tomorrow we will buy the blankets."
But beginnings are beginnings. A foundation not well laid destroys the whole edifice.
"From now on until I set you free, your desires are nothing," Ommony said sternly. "You consider my needs and my convenience. When I have time to consider yours, it will remain to be seen whether I forget or not. Go and wait on the porch. Try to make friends with the dog; she can teach you a lot you must learn in one way or another. If the dog permits you leisure for thought, try to imagine which way the Lama may have gone."
Dawa Tsering went out through the hall, too impressed by the novelty of the situation even to mutter to himself. Ommony went to the window and said two or three words to Diana, whose long tail beat responsively on the teak boards. Presently came the sound of Dawa Tsering's voice:
