Little Mildred had risen from
his place to inspect. He jumped back as though he had been shot.
"Perhaps it would be better, sir, to send the men away," said he to
the colonel, for he was a much-privileged subaltern. He put his arms
round the rag-bound horror as he spoke, and dropped him into a chair.
It may not have been explained that the littleness of Mildred lay in
his being six feet four, and big in proportion. The corporal, seeing
that an officer was disposed to look after the capture, and that the
colonel's eye was beginning to blaze, promptly removed himself and his
men. The mess was left alone with the carbine thief, who laid his head
on the table and wept bitterly, hopelessly, and inconsolably, as
little children weep.
Hira Singh leaped to his feet with a long-drawn vernacular oath
"Colonel Sahib," said he, "that man is no Afghan, for they weep '_Ai!
Ai_!' Nor is he of Hindustan, for they weep,'_Oh! Ho_!' He weeps after
the fashion of the white men, who say '_Ow! Ow_!'"
"Now where the dickens did you get that knowledge, Hira Singh?" said
the captain of the Lushkar team.
"Hear him!" said Hira Singh, simply, pointing at the crumpled figure
that wept as though it would never cease.
"He said, 'My God!'" said Little Mildred, "I heard him say it."
The colonel and the mess room looked at the man in silence. It is a
horrible thing to hear a man cry.
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