A Soldier and a Gentleman. Talbot Mundy
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accompanied by a native officer. And since Dost Mohammed was the man of all his eight commissioned charges whom he trusted most, the Colonel took him—weary after his two-day ride, but unreluctant.
“You see, Dost Mohammed,” he explained, “we leave at dawn. This is the apparent duty of gentlemen. We don’t know how much harm this Gopi Lall may do before we round him up, so we’ll warn her now—you and I together—before it’s too late. “
“As you say, Huzoor,” growled Dost Mohammed. And because of that ban on discussing women folk, he saw fit not to tell his Colonel certain things he might have told. It was little that Dost Mohammed knew, except some fragmentary history; but even that much might have saved the trip.
So Dost Mohammed rode beside him to the gilded dwelling on the jungle edge, and waited in the courtyard listening to the murmurings and gigglings above, and watching the shifting lights and shadows passing. And after an interminable wait Yasmini herself came down, close-veiled as if all the virtues of the East and West alike were concentrated in her loveliness.
Speaking in Hindustani, the lingua franca of India, Colonel Stapleton told her what he had to say of Gopi Lall, and of the rumor that she loved him. Yasmini thanked him, bowing low as a woodland fairy might have bowed to Oberon. With a little titter of embarrassment she disclaimed all knowledge of and certainly all love for the outlaw. She professed profound horror of him, and the pious hope that such a monster among men might meet a quick-found slow-drawn Nemesis.
She satisfied the Colonel; but when he and his fierce coadjutor had ridden off—almost before the hoofbeats had died down in the steamy night mist—Yasmini laughed long and merrily; laughed with the tinkling cadence of a peal of fairy bells; lay on a cushioned divan and laughed; laughed as her maidens undressed her; and later, laughed herself to sleep.
“Are all men fools?” she laughed. “Nay. Find me another word! Princes and priests and statesmen—they are fools: But soldiers, Englishmen—oh, women, soothe me; rub my ribs; pray Hanuman, the monkey god, to find a word for them!”
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