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"Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain at the dead of night."

He had received the entire contents of the basin upon his back-the soapy cataract was trickling over his shoulders and down his cheeks, whilst his thin white clothes stuck to his figure with a closeness and a regularity which fully revealed its outlines.

"Paugul!" exclaimed the colonel—whilst his bearer, who had crept stealthily out of the cabin, commenced fanning as usual, as if he had never left off. "Paugul, is that you? what, in the name of wonder, made you slip so stealthily into that empty cabin just as I awoke, almost eaten up with musquitos, and melting with heat ?”

"O, it's no matter now," said Paugul with melancholy mildness, "but upon my honour, colonel, you ought to be more careful in throwing such articles about; as a magistrate, I really would not advise your allowing your temper to get so far the better of you the copper basin might have injured me seriously."

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So it might, but it was intended for this

scoundrel," said the colonel, turning fiercely to the bearer, who kept fanning harder than ever, but maintained a position carefully out of the reach of Bunder's arm. Indeed, to look at the servant's face, one would fancy that he knew nothing of the occurrence at all, but had been fanning there without intermission from the night before.

"Go and call the gentleman's servant, you fool," said the colonel, endeavouring to repress a laugh as he contemplated Paugul's forlorn condition. Many servants were about, however, and the unfortunate sufferer quickly received assistance in divesting himself of his wet garments, which, by the way, is no such easy matter when they are light and thin.

At breakfast that morning, Mrs. Nutkut was, of course, fully informed of the circumstance--the colonel representing his own conduct in the most favourable light, and impressing upon us the fact that he was not kinder to his dear" Sukchilly" (the monkey) than he was to his servants, and that a considerable portion of his ire arose from indignation that one generally so kind and attentive, should have been so badly treated by

them. His table-servant was behind him at the time, heard and understood every word his master was saying, was painfully conscious that scarcely a week passed without some dreadful thrashing being inflicted by the little colonel upon himself or some of his fellowservants, and yet did not by a look, not so much as by the lifting of an eyebrow, betray his consciousness of either the one fact or the other.

In this respect Hindoo servants certainly surpass all others. Their powers of simulation and of dissimulation are equally extraordinary. Paugul did not make his appearance till breakfast was half over; his dressing occupied an hour exactly by the clock, no very extraordinary length of time, all things considered; and as he had to go through precisely the same routine twice on this particular morning, we were not astonished at his late appearance.

Mrs. Nutkut asked him particularly for his version of the story, and it was amusing to see, that, whilst Bunder's account was intended principally to exculpate himself, Paugul's abounded in abuse of the Colonel's servant, and was elaborate only upon the motives which induced him to enter the cabin. How

different the points of view from which different people survey the same scene or the same object! To us at the breakfast-table the motives of Bunder or of Paugul were of little moment, whilst we dilated upon the ridiculous figure made by Paugul on his exit from the empty cabin, and admired amazingly the apparent collectedness and sang-froid of the bearer, for whom the libation was intended. Mrs. Nutkut did not fail to rally Paugul

upon

his taste for the ludicrous and its consequences; and indeed the incident, simple and natural as it was, was a source of much merriment in so monotonous a journey.

CHAPTER XVI.

RIVER HAPS AND MISHAPS.

In the evening the captain and the pilot seemed to differ in opinion with respect to the place where the vessel should stop for the night. In so ever-varying a stream as the Ganges, the steamers, in their voyages up and down, are obliged to take various pilots as they proceed, who, by constantly going over the same ground, or rather the same water, backwards and forwards, are aware of the changes in the river, and where the steamer can most safely and swiftly progress. On this particular evening we had "carried on," as the sailors say, later than usual.

It was already dark before Lumba was thinking of dropping the anchor. The native

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