The Project Gutenberg EBook of Told in the East, by Talbot Mundy

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Title: Told in the East

Author: Talbot Mundy

Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5315]
Posting Date: June 10, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOLD IN THE EAST ***

Produced by Jake Jaqua

TOLD IN THE EAST

By Talbot Mundy

[[Original Book edition published by Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1920.
Source of the following edition is the omnibus "Romances of India" which
was a reprint of three of Talbot Mundy's novels.]]

Romances of India

By Talbot Mundy - King of the Khyber Rifles
- Guns of the Gods
- Told in the East

Contents

Hookum Hai.............1 For The Salt Which He Had Eaten............129
Machassan Ah............235

TOLD IN THE EAST

HOOKUM HAI

I.

A Blood-red sun rested its huge disk upon a low mud wall that crested
a rise to westward, and flattened at the bottom from its own weight
apparently. A dozen dried-out false-acacia-trees shivered as the
faintest puff in all the world of stifling wind moved through them; and
a hundred thousand tiny squirrels kept up their aimless scampering in
search of food that was not there.

A coppersmith was about the only living thing that seemed to care
whether the sun went down or not. He seemed in a hurry to get a job
done, and his reiterated "Bong-bong-bong!"--that had never ceased since
sunrise, and had driven nearly mad the few humans who were there to hear
it--quickened and grew louder. At last Brown came out of a square mud
house, to see about the sunset.

He was nobody but plain Bill Brown--or Sergeant William Brown, to give
him his full name and entitlements--and the price of him was two rupees
per day.

He stared straight at the dull red disk of the sun, and spat with
eloquence. Then he wiped the sweat from his forehead, and scratched a
place where the prickly heat was bothering him. Next, he buttoned up
his tunic, and brushed it down neatly and precisely. There was official
business to be done, and a man did that with due formality, heat or no
heat.

"Guard, turn out!" he ordered.

Twelve men filed out, one