our village, after our march of the day, we as usual put up in an empty shop in the bazaar of the town we rested at. My father left us to go about on his own business, and my mother, who could not show herself outside, after repeated injunctions that I was not to stray away, laid down in an inner room and went to sleep. Finding myself at liberty, as Chumpa was busy cooking and the Juwans[1] were all out of the way, I speedily forgot all my mother's orders, and betook myself to play with some other children in the street. We were all at high romps, when a good-looking man of middle age addressed me, and asked me who I was—I must have been remarkable from the rest of the ragged urchins about me, as I was well dressed, and had some silver and gold ornaments on my person. I told him that my father's name was Yoosuf Khan, and that he and my mother and myself were going to Indoor.
"Ah, then," said he, "you are the party I met yesterday on the road: your mother rides on a bullock, does she not?"
"No, indeed!" retorted I, angrily, "she rides
- ↑ Juwan, lit. "a young man," applied in a general sense to soldiers.
