"Nonsense, there can be only two to four thousand in a fort. Now, are they there at present or are they gone out?"
"Where could they go out?"
"To the fair. When did you leave the place?"
"Yesterday, sahib."
"Oh then, they must have gone out to-day."
Santi was musing within herself: "In vain have I donned my nose-print if I can't plot your ruin. I only want to see when jackals would be eating your head." To the Major she said, "I donot know all that. I am a Vaishnavi and go about singing from door to door. I donot care to keep these informations. Now I am quite tired of talking, give me my pice and let me go. And, if you care to reward me well, I will get you the informations day after tomorrow if you mind it."
The Major threw a rupee at her and said: "Not day after tomorrow, Bibi."
"Off you wretch, say Vaishnavi and not Bibi."
"Not day after tomorrow, I want the information this evening."
"Yes, you go to sleep with that pleasant thought with wine and a gun in your head and oil in your nostrils! To think that I shall be going these twenty miles of the way and come back again to give him the news! chucho beta."
"What's a chucho beta."
"A hero—a great general."
"Great general! well, I may be one like Clive. But
