I'm short of mosquito curtains,
though. Some of you will get badly bitten tonight."
"I'll go to old Parr's bungalow and steal his," said Granger. "He's too
drunk to feel any 'skeeter biting him."
"I pity the mosquito that does," joined in a young planter laughing. "The
poor insect would die of alcoholic poisoning."
"I've given you my room, Major," said Daleham. "I know the other fellows
won't mind."
No persuasion, however, could make Dermot accept the offer. While
the others slept in the bungalow, he lay under the stars beside his
elephant. The house was wrapped in darkness. In the huts in the compound
the servants still gossiped about the extraordinary events of the day,
but gradually they too lay down and pulled their blankets over their
heads, and all was silence. But a few hundred yards away a lamp still
burned in Chunerbutty's bungalow where the Hindu sat staring at the wall
of his room, wondering what had happened that day and what had been
said in the Dalehams' dining-room that night. For he had prowled about
their house in the darkness and seen the company gathered around the
supper-table. And he had watched Dermot shut the door between the room
and the verandah, and guessed that things were to be said that Indians
were not meant to hear. So through the night he sat motionless in his
chair with mind and heart full of bitterness, cursing the soldier by all
he held unholy.
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