Brown stepped to the sword, jerked
it out of the ground and returned it to his scabbard in three motions.
"Shoulder-umms! Order-umms! Dismiss!" The men filed back into the
hut again, disconsolately, without swearing and without mirth. They
had put the sun to bed with proper military decency. They would have
seen humor--perhaps--or an excuse for blasphemy in the omission of
such a detail, but it was much too hot to swear at the execution of it.
Besides, Brown was a strange individual who detested swearing, and
it was a very useful thing, and wise, to humor him. He had a way
of his own, and usually got it.
Brown posted a sentry at the hut-door, and another at the crossroads
which he was to guard, then went round behind the but to bargain
with the goatskin-merchant. But he stopped before he reached the tree.
"Boy!" he called, and a low-caste native servant came toward him
at a run.
"Is that fakir there still?"
"Ha, sahib!"
"Ha? Can't you learn to say `yes,' like a human being?"
"Yes, sahib!"
"All right. I'm going to have a talk with him.
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