14. What Melchisedec Heard and Saw
On this very afternoon, while Sara was out, a strahing happened iily Melchisedec saw and heard it; and he was so much alarmed and mystified that he scuttled back to his hole and hid there, and really quaked and trembled as he peeped out furtively and with great caution to watch what was going on.
The attic had been very still all the day after Sara had left it in the early m. The stillness had only been broken by the pattering of the rain upon the slates and the skylight. Melchisedec had, in fact, found it rather dull; and when the rain ceased to patter and perfect silence reigned, he decided to e out and reoiter, though experieaught him that Sara would not return for some time. He had been rambling and sniffing about, and had just found a totally ued and unexplained crumb left from his last meal, when his attention was attracted by a sound on the roof. He stopped to listen with a palpitati. The sound suggested that something was moving on the roof. It roag the skylight; it reached the skylight. The skylight was being mysteriously opened. A dark face peered into the attic; then another face appeared behind it, and both looked in with signs of caution and i. Two men were outside on the roof, and were making silent preparations to ehrough the skylight itself. One was Ram Dass and the other was a young man who was the Indialemaary; but of course Melchisedec did not know this. He only khat the men were invading the silend privacy of the attid as the oh the dark face let himself down through the aperture with such lightness aerity that he did not make the slightest sound, Melchisedec turail and fled precipitately back to his hole. He was frighteo death. He had ceased to be timid with Sara, and knew she would hrow anything but crumbs, and would never make any sound other than the soft, low, coaxing whistling; but strange men were dangerous things to remain near. He lay close and flat he entrance of his home, just managing to peep through the crack with a bright, alarmed eye. How much he uood of the talk he heard I am not in the least able to say; but, even if he had uood it all, he would probably have remained greatly mystified.
The secretary, who was light and young, slipped through the skylight as noiselessly as Ram Dass had done; and he caught a last glimpse of Melchisedecs vanishing tail.
"Was that a rat?" he asked Ram Dass in a whisper.
"Yes; a rat, Sahib," answered Ram Dass, also whispering. "There are many in the walls."
"Ugh!" exclaimed the young man. "It is a wohe child is not terrified of them."
Ram Dass made a gesture with his hands. He also smiled respectfully. He was in this place as the intimate expo of Sara, though she had only spoken to him once.
"The child is the little friend of all things, Sahib," he answered. "She is not as other children. I see her when she does not see me. I slip across the slates and look at her many nights to see that she is safe. I watch her from my window when she does not know I am near. She stands oable there and looks out at the sky as if it spoke to her. The sparrows e at her call. The rat she has fed and tamed in her loneliness. The poor slave of the house es to her for fort. There is a little child who es to her i; there is one older who worships her and would listen to her forever if she might. This I have seen when I have crept across the roof. By the mistress of the house--who is an evil woman--she is trea