When it was over, and he dozed, wearied out by the unaccustomed effort, on the wooden bed under the _nim_-tree, the hard roly-poly bolster tucked in to the hollow of his neck--or something else--made his sleeping-place a Bethel, and he dreamed dreams.
Then he had to resume the old uniform once more and go over to the tents again with a petition. Rângurs always have petitions about wells, or water, or brood mares; for, if they make excellent troopers, they are intolerably bad ploughmen. That was why Mool Raj, the hereditary money-lender of Jehâdpore, was able to send his son, Hunumân Sing, to college and make a pleader of him.
The ex-_rissaldar_, with two sons and three grandsons in the old regiment, waxed contemptuous over the "pleadery" career. But that was his attitude in all things towards Mool Raj and the small Hindu element the latter represented in Jehâdpore. The fact that the Mohammedan population to a man was in the usurer's debt did not affect the position of affairs at all, or detract from the feeling of virtuous tolerance which allowed a most modest and retiring Hindu temple to conceal itself behind the back wall of the mosque façade. It was a great concession, for Azmutoollah was not the only _Hâdji_[6] in Jehâdpore. The place was a perfect hot-bed of fighting Mohammedanism, which only needed opposition to grow into fanaticism.
Yet, when Mool Raj added a new story to the Hindu temple, nobody said him nay. They were good friends with the wizened, monkey-like usurer.
"_Bismillah!_ Khan Sahib," laughed one of the group of _sowars_ round Azmutoollah's wooden bed. "He saith it is to save his soul from sin. God knows he needs it, for he hath charged me rascally interest on my last debt. If we must needs have a Hindu in the place, seeing God and his Prophet forbid the true believer to soil his hands with usury, then, by the _Imâms_, let us have a pious one!"
Even when he put a gilt spike on the top they spoke of it in contemptuous kindness. "Whether he buries our gold or sets it on high is all one, so long as he hath enough to lend us when we seek it. And 'tis thank-offering, he says, for his son Hunumân passing as B.A. God knows what that may be, but the boy hath thin legs and a narrow chest."