Read Ebook: The Story of Sonny Sahib by Duncan Sara Jeannette

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 311 lines and 21040 words, and 7 pages

A pearl.

So Moti and the Maharajah went down to the audience hall together, and there they found Sonny Sahib asleep too, which was not wonderful, considering that the Maharajah had kept him waiting two hours and a quarter. Perhaps this occurred to His Highness, and prevented him from being angry. At all events, as Sonny Sahib scrambled to his feet in response to a terrified tug from Tooni, he did not look very angry.

Sonny Sahib saw a little lean old man, with soft sunken black eyes, and a face like a withered potato. He wore a crimson velvet smoking-cap upon his head, and was buttoned up to the chin in a long tight coat of blue and yellow brocade. Above the collar and below the sleeves of the coat showed the neck and cuffs of an English linen shirt, which were crumpled and not particularly clean. The cuffs were so big that the Maharajah's thin little brown fingers were almost lost in them. The blue and yellow brocaded coat was buttoned up with emeralds, but the Maharajah shuffled along in a pair of old carpet slippers, which to Sonny Sahib were the most remarkable features of his attire. So much occupied, indeed, was Sonny Sahib in looking at the Maharajah's slippers, that he quite forgot to make his salaam. As for Tooni, she was lying flat at their Highnesses' feet, talking indistinctly into the marble floor.

The little Highness was much pleasanter to look at than his father. He had large dark eyes and soft light-brown cheeks, and he was all dressed in pink satin, with a little jewelled cap, and his long black hair tied up in a hard knot at the back of his neck. The little Highness looked at Sonny Sahib curiously, and then tugged at his father's sleeve.

'Let him come with me now, immediately,' said the little Maharajah; 'he has a face of gold.'

The Maharajah sat down, not in his chair--he did not greatly like sitting in his chair--but on the carpet.

'Whence do you come?' said he to Tooni.

'Protector of the poor, from Rubbulgurh.'

'Where your Highness sent to for us,' added Sonny Sahib. 'Tooni, why do you pinch me?'

His Highness looked disconcerted for a moment. As a matter of fact he had known all that Tooni or Sonny Sahib could tell him about themselves for three years, but he considered it more dignified to appear as if he knew nothing.

'This is a child of the mlechas,' said the Maharajah, which was not a very polite way of saying that he was English.

'Protector of the poor, yes.'

'Account to me for him. How old is he?'

'Seven years, great King.'

'And two months, Tooni-ji. Your Highness, may I sit down?'

'As old as the Folly.'

Native term for the Mutiny.

'He came of the Folly, Hazur. His mother died by the sepoys in Cawnpore, his father--also,' said Tooni, for she feared to be blamed for not having found Sonny Sahib's father. As she told the story once again to the Maharajah, adding many things that Sonny Sahib had never heard before, he became so much interested that he stood on one foot for five minutes at a time, and quite forgot to ask His Highness again if he might sit down.

The Maharajah heard her to the end without a word or a change of expression. When she had finished, 'My soldiers were not there,' he said thoughtfully, and with a shade of regret, which was not, I fear, at the thought of any good they might have done. Then he seemed to reflect, while Tooni stood before him with her hands joined together at the finger-tips and her head bowed.

'Then, without permission, you brought this child of outcasts into my State,' said he at last. 'That was an offence.'

Tooni struck her forehead with her hand.

'Your Highness is my father and my mother!' she sobbed, 'I could not leave it to the jackals.'

'You are a wretched Mussulman, the daughter of cow-killers, and you may have known no better--'

'Your Highness!' remarked Sonny Sahib, with respectful indignation, 'Adam had two sons, one was buried and one was burned--'

'Choop!' said the Maharajah crossly. You might almost guess that 'Choop' meant 'Be quiet!'

'But it was an offence,' he continued.

'Protector of the poor, I meant no harm.'

'That is true talk. And you shall receive no harm. But you must leave the boy with me. I want him to play games with my son, to amuse my son. For thirty days my son has asked this of me, and ten days ago his mother died--so he must have it.'

Tooni salaamed humbly. 'If the boy finds favour in Your Highness's eyes it is very good,' she said simply, and turned to go.

'Stop,' said the Maharajah. 'I will do justice in this matter. I desire the boy, but I have brought his price. Where is it, Moti-ji?'

The little Maharajah laughed with delight, and drew from behind him a jingling bag.

'It is one hundred and fifty rupees,' said the Maharajah. 'Give it to the woman, Moti.' And the child held it out to her.

Tooni looked at the bag, and then at Sonny Sahib, salaamed and hesitated. It was a provision for the rest of her life, as lives go in Rajputana.

'Is it not enough!' asked the Maharajah irritably, while the little prince's face fell.

'Your Highness,' stammered Tooni, 'it is great riches--may roses be to your mouth! But I have a desire--rather than the money--'

'What is your desire?' cried the little prince. 'Say it. In a breath my father will allow it. I want the gold-faced one to come and play.'

The Maharajah nodded, and this time Tooni lay down at the feet of the little prince.

'It is,' said she, 'that--I am a widow and old--that I also may live in the farthest corner within the courtyard walls, with the boy.'

The Maharajah slipped the bag quickly into the pocket of his blue and yellow coat.

'It is a strange preference,' he said, 'but the Mussulmans have no minds. It may be.'

Tooni kissed his feet, and Sonny Sahib nodded approval at him. Somehow, Sonny Sahib never could be taught good Rajput manners.

'The boy is well grown,' said the Maharajah, turning upon his heel. 'What is his name?'

'Protector of the poor,' answered Tooni, quivering with delight, 'his name is Sonny Sahib.'

Perhaps nobody has told you why the English are called Sahibs in India. It is because they rule there.

The Maharajah's face went all into a pucker of angry wrinkles, and his eyes shone like little coals.

'What talk is that?' he said angrily. 'His great-grandfather was a monkey! There is only one master here. Pig's daughter, his name is Sunni!'

Tooni did not dare to say a word, and even the little prince was silent.

'Look you,' said the old man to Sonny Sahib. 'Follow my son, the Maharajah, into the courtyard, and there do his pleasure. Do you understand? FOLLOW him!'

'Sunni,' said Moti, as the two boys rode through the gates of the courtyard a year later, 'a man of your race has come here, and my father has permitted him to remain. My father has given him the old empty jail to live in, behind the monkey temple. They say many curious things are in his house. Let us ride past it.'

In his whole life Sunni had never heard such an interesting piece of news before--even Tooni's, about the Maharajah's horseman, was nothing to this. 'Why is he come?' he asked, putting his little red Arab into a trot.

'To bring your gods to the Rajputs.'

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet