It is seldom that a Hindu makes English puns.
Now, however, the man was changed beyond all recognition.
Caste-mark, stomach, slate-colored continuations, and unctuous
speech were all gone. I looked at a withered skeleton, turban-less
and almost naked, with long matted hair and deep-set codfish-eyes.
But for a crescent-shaped scar on the left cheek--the result of an
accident for which I was responsible I should never have known
him. But it was indubitably Gunga Dass, and--for this I was
thankfull--an English-speaking native who might at least tell me
the meaning of all that I had gone through that day.
The crowd retreated to some distance as I turned toward the
miserable figure, and ordered him to show me some method of
escaping from the crater. He held a freshly plucked crow in his
hand, and in reply to my question climbed slowly on a platform of
sand which ran in front of the holes, and commenced lighting a
fire there in silence. Dried bents, sand-poppies, and driftwood burn
quickly; and I derived much consolation from the fact that he lit
them with an ordinary sulphur-match.
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