The Story of Sonny Sahib by Sara Jeannette Duncan (short story to read .txt) 📕

it into little pieces and pelted the givers with them.

'She is not hungry to-day,' said Moti. 'Let us take out the falcons.'

Next morning the Maharajah was very much annoyed by the intelligence that all the little red-spotted fishes were floating flabby and flat and dead among the lily pads of the fountain--there were few things except Moti that the Maharajah loved better than his little red-spotted fishes. He wanted very particularly to know why they should have died in this unanimous and apparently preconcerted way. The gods had probably killed them by lightning, but the Maharajah wanted to know. So he sent for the Englishman, who did not mind touching a dead thing, and the Englishman told him that the little red-spotted fishes had undoubtedly been poisoned. Moti was listening when the doctor said this.

'It could not have been the cake,' said Moti.

But when all was looked into, including one of the little fishes, Dr. Roberts found that it undoubtedly had been the cake. Scraps of it were still lying about the banyan-tree to help him to this conclusion, and the monkey chattered as if she could give evidence, too, if anybody would listen. But she gave evidence enough in not eating it. Everybody, that is, everybody in Rajputana, knows that you can never poison a monkey. The little prince maintained that the voice he heard was the voice of Matiya, yet every one recognised the jewels to be Tarra's. There was nothing else to go upon, and the Maharajah decided that it was impossible to tell which of the two had wickedly tried to poison his eldest son. He arranged, however, that they should both disappear--he could not possibly risk a mistake in the matter. And I wish that had been the greatest of the Maharajah's injustices. When the truth came out, later, that it was undoubtedly Matiya, the Maharajah said that he had always been a good deal of that opinion, and built a beautiful domed white marble tomb, partly in memory of Tarra and partly, I fear, to commemorate his own sagacity, which may seem, under the circumstances, a little odd.

The really curious thing was, however, that out of it all came honour and glory for Sunni. For what, asked the Maharajah, had prevented the poisoning of his son? What but the shadow of Sunni, which fell upon the cake, so that Moti could not eat it! Therefore, without doubt, Sunni had saved the life of a king; and he could ask nothing that should not be granted to him; he should stand always near the throne. Sunni felt very proud and important, he did not know exactly why; but he could not think of anything he wanted, except to learn his own language from the Englishman.

'Oh, foolish bargainer!' cried Moti, 'when you know that has been given already!'


CHAPTER VI

Dr. Roberts, who lived, by the Maharajah's kind permission, in the jail behind the monkey temple, soon found himself in rather an awkward dilemma. Not in regard to the monkeys. They were certainly troublesome. They stole his biscuits, and made holes in his roof, and tore up the reports he wrote for the S.P.C.K. in England. Dr. Roberts made allowance for the monkeys, however. He had come to take away their sacred character, and nobody could expect them to like it. If you had asked Dr. Roberts what his difficulty was he would have shown you Sonny Sahib. The discovery was so wonderful that he had made. He had found a yellow-haired, blue-eyed English boy in a walled palace of Rajputana, five hundred miles from any one of his race. The boy was happy, healthy, and well content. That much the Maharajah had pointed out to him; that much he could see for himself. Beyond that the Maharajah had discouraged Dr. Roberts' interest. The boy's name was Sunni, he had no other name, he had come 'under the protection' of the Maharajah when he was very young; and that was all His Highness could be induced to say. Any more pointed inquiries he was entirely unable to understand. There seemed to be no one else who knew. Tooni could have told him, but Tooni was under orders that she did not dare to disobey. In the bazar two or three conflicting stories, equally wonderful, were told of Sunni; but none that Dr. Roberts could believe. In the end he found out about Sunni from Sunni himself, who had never forgotten one word of what Tooni told the Maharajah. Sunni mentioned also, with considerable pride, that he had known three English words for a long time--'wass' and 'bruss' and 'isstockin'.'

Then Dr. Roberts, with his heart full of the awful grief of the Mutiny, and thinking how gladly this waif and stray would be received by somebody, hurried to the Maharajah, and begged that the boy might be given back to his own people, that he, Dr. Roberts, might take him back to his own people at his personal risk and expense; that inquiries might at least be set on foot to find his relatives.

'Yes,' said the Maharajah, 'but not yet, ee-Wobbis. The boy will be well here for a year, and you shall teach him. At the end of that time we will speak again of this matter.'

Dr. Roberts was not satisfied. He asked the Maharajah at all events to allow Sunni to live with him in his empty jail, but His Highness refused absolutely.

'And look you, ee-Wobbis,' said he, 'I have promised the Viceroy in Calcutta that you shall be safe in my country, and you shall be safe, though I never asked you to come here. But if any khaber goes to Calcutta about this boy, and if there is the least confusion regarding him, your mouth shall be stopped, and you shall not talk any more to my people. For my part, I do not like your medicines, and you have not yet cured Proteb Singh of his short leg; he goes as lame as ever!'

This was Dr. Roberts' difficulty; his mouth would be stopped. He did not doubt the Maharajah. If he wrote to Calcutta that a Rajput prince still held a hostage from the Mutiny, and made a disturbance, there would be an end to the work he had begun under the shadow of the palace wall. And the work was prospering so well! The people were listening now, Dr. Roberts thought, and certainly he had been able to relieve a great deal of their physical misery. Would he be justified in writing to Calcutta? Dr. Roberts thought about it very long and very seriously. In the end he believed that he would not be justified, at least until the year was over of which the Maharajah spoke. Then if His Highness did not keep his promise, Dr. Roberts would see about it.

So the year went by; the months when the sun blazed straight across the sky overhead, and everybody slept at noonday--the months when a gray sheet of rain hung from the clouds for days together, and the months when all the Maharajah's dominions were full of splendid yellow lights and pleasant winds--when the teak wood trees dropped their big dusty leaves, and the nights were sharply cold, and Rajputana pretended that it was winter. Dr. Roberts and Sunni were very well then, but Moti shrivelled up and coughed the day through, and the Maharajah, when he went out to drive, wrapped himself up in Cashmere shawls, head and ears and all.

The boys learnt as much English as could possibly be expected of them; Sunni learnt more, because Dr. Roberts made it a point that he should. Besides, he became a great friend of Dr. Roberts, who began by begging that Sunni might be allowed to ride with him, then to drive with him, and finally to spend two or three days at a time with him. Sunni had more to learn than Moti had. He had a good many things to forget, too, which gave him almost as much trouble.

The Maharajah found it as difficult as ever to like ee-Wobbis's medicines, but he considered them excellent for Moti's cough, and only complained that his son should be given so little of them. The royal treasury would pay for a whole bottle--why should the little prince get only a spoonful? Nevertheless Dr. Roberts stood well in the estimation of the Maharajah, who arranged that a great many things should be done as the missionary suggested. In one case the Maharajah had the palace well, the oldest palace well, cleaned out--a thing that nobody had ever thought of before; and he was surprised to find what was at the bottom of it. Dr. Roberts advised putting down a few drains too, and making a road from the city of the Maharajah to the great highways that led to the Viceroy's India. The Maharajah laid the drains, and said he would think about the road. Then Dr. Roberts suggested that a hospital would be a good thing, and the Maharajah said he would think about that too.

Sunni was growing fast; he was too tall and thin for nine years old. Dr. Roberts took anxious care of him, thinking of the unknown grandfather and grandmother in England, and how he could best tell them of this boy of theirs, who read Urdu better than English, and wore embroidered slippers turned squarely up at the toes, and asked such strange questions about his father's God. But when he taxed the Maharajah with his promise, His Highness simply repeated, in somewhat more amiable terms, his answer of the year before. And the work was now prospering more than ever. When once he had got the hospital, Dr. Roberts made up his mind that he would take definite measures; but he would get the hospital first.


CHAPTER VII

I suppose it was about that time that Surji Rao began to consider whether it was after all for the best interests of the State that ee-Wobbis should remain in it. Surji Rao was first Minister to the Maharajah, and a very important person. He had charge of the Treasury, and it was his business to produce every day one hundred fresh rupees to put into it. This was his duty, and whether the harvests had been good and the cattle many, or whether the locusts and the drought had made the people poor, Surji Rao did his duty. If ever he should fail, there hung a large and heavy shoe upon the wall of the Maharajah's apartment, which daily suggested personal chastisement and a possible loss of dignity to Surji Rao.

Dr. Roberts was making serious demands upon the Treasury, and proposed to make others more serious still. Worse than that, he was supplanting Surji Rao in the confidence and affection of the Maharajah. Worse still, he was making a pundit of that outcast boy, who had been already too much favoured in the palace, so that he might very well grow up to be Minister of the Treasury instead of Rasso, son of Surji Rao--a thing unendurable. Surji Rao was the fattest man in the State, so fat that it was said he sat down only twice a day; but he lay awake on sultry nights for so many weeks reflecting upon this, that he grew obviously, almost ostentatiously, thin. To this he added such