The Moonstone - Page 16/404

Mr. Franklin's name roused me. I opened my eyes, and made my girl

explain herself.

It appeared that Penelope had just come from our lodge, where she had

been having a gossip with the lodge-keeper's daughter. The two girls

had seen the Indians pass out, after I had warned them off, followed by

their little boy. Taking it into their heads that the boy was ill-used

by the foreigners--for no reason that I could discover, except that

he was pretty and delicate-looking--the two girls had stolen along the

inner side of the hedge between us and the road, and had watched the

proceedings of the foreigners on the outer side. Those proceedings

resulted in the performance of the following extraordinary tricks.

They first looked up the road, and down the road, and made sure that

they were alone. Then they all three faced about, and stared hard in

the direction of our house. Then they jabbered and disputed in their

own language, and looked at each other like men in doubt. Then they

all turned to their little English boy, as if they expected HIM to help

them. And then the chief Indian, who spoke English, said to the boy,

"Hold out your hand."

On hearing those dreadful words, my daughter Penelope said she didn't

know what prevented her heart from flying straight out of her. I thought

privately that it might have been her stays. All I said, however,

was, "You make my flesh creep." (NOTA BENE: Women like these little

compliments.) Well, when the Indian said, "Hold out your hand," the boy shrunk back,

and shook his head, and said he didn't like it. The Indian, thereupon,

asked him (not at all unkindly), whether he would like to be sent back

to London, and left where they had found him, sleeping in an empty

basket in a market--a hungry, ragged, and forsaken little boy. This, it

seems, ended the difficulty. The little chap unwillingly held out his

hand. Upon that, the Indian took a bottle from his bosom, and poured out

of it some black stuff, like ink, into the palm of the boy's hand. The

Indian--first touching the boy's head, and making signs over it in the

air--then said, "Look." The boy became quite stiff, and stood like a

statue, looking into the ink in the hollow of his hand.

(So far, it seemed to me to be juggling, accompanied by a foolish waste

of ink. I was beginning to feel sleepy again, when Penelope's next words

stirred me up.) The Indians looked up the road and down the road once more--and then

the chief Indian said these words to the boy; "See the English gentleman

from foreign parts."

The boy said, "I see him."

The Indian said, "Is it on the road to this house, and on no other, that

the English gentleman will travel to-day?"