THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS
off his knees, and the cart jolted down the glaring road. But in his heart he was contented. After all, this was the place where he had been born, and things were not much changed since he had been sent to England, a child, fifteen years ago.
There were a few new buildings, but the air and the smell and the sunshine were the same; and the little green men who crossed the parade-ground looked very familiar. Three weeks ago John Chinn would have said he did not remember a word of the Bhil tongue, but at the mess door he found his lips moving in sentences that he did not understand—bits of old nursery rhymes, and tail-ends of such orders as his father used to give the men.
The Colonel watched him come up the steps, and laughed.
"Look!" he said to the Major. "No need to ask the young un's breed. He 's a pukka Chinn. 'Might be his father in the Fifties over again."
"Hope he 'll shoot as straight," said the Major. "He 's brought enough ironmongery with him."
"'Would n't be a Chinn if he did n't. Watch him blowin' his nose. 'Regular Chinn beak. 'Flourishes his handkerchief like his father. It 's the second edition—line for line."
"'Fairy tale, by Jove!" said the Major, peering through the slats of the jalousies. "If he 's the lawful heir, he 'll . . . Now old Chinn could no more pass that chick without fiddling with it than . . ."
"His son!" said the Colonel, jumping up.
"Well, I be blowed!" said the Major. The boy's eye
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