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find you another place. “
    She said: “I love the little ones.”
    “And Mrs. Freeling and the Captain … they are not good to you? You can tell me, you know.”
    “I am left with the children. The Captain loves them.”
    “Then it is Mrs. Freeling? Does she interfere? Does she complain?”
    She shook her head. She hesitated for a few seconds, then she burst out: “There are parties … meetings … they do strange things. I know what it is. They grow it in the villages. I have seen it … so much … when I was a little one. It grows well in India … so pretty it looks, with the poppies waving their heads … so innocent.
    You would not believe it. It flourishes if the soil is fine and loose and fed with manure and much water. I have seen the sowing in November, and in January it is ready when the flower seeds are the size of a hen’s eggs. “
    “What are you talking about?”
    “They call it opium,” she told me.
    “It is here … everywhere. Some sell it for money. Some grow it for themselves. They smoke it in their pipes, and they become strange … very strange.”
    “Do you mean they are drugged? Tell me about it.”
    “I must not. It is no concern of mine. I should not want my little one to be with such people.”
    “You mean Mrs. Freeling …”
    “Please forget I speak.”
    “You mean here … there are parties … orgies. I must tell my father.”
    “Oh no, no. Please do not. I should not have speak. I am wrong.
    Forget. Please to forget. “
    “How can I? They are smoking opium, you say. That should be stopped.”
    She shook her head.
    “No. No. It-has always been. Here in the villages it is so easy to grow. Please do not talk of it. Only do not go to these places. Do not let them tempt you to try.”
     
    “Tempt me! Of course they never would. Ayah, are you sure?”
    She shook her head.
    “Not sure. Not all sure …”
    “But you told me …”
    She closed her eyes and shook her head. I believed that she was afraid and tried to soothe her.
    “I have seen them here. They look strange. They seem strange. There is a man. He comes here often. He is the Devil Doctor. He wants opium. He buys it. He takes it away. He watches people and tempts them. I believe he is a devil.”
    Oh, I thought with relief, she is romancing now.
    “Tell me about this Devil Doctor,” I said.
    “He is tall; his hair is black like the night. I saw him once. He wore a black cloak and a black hat.”
    “He sounds satanic. Tell me, did he have cloven feet?”
    “I believe so she said.
    I breathed more easily. I remembered some of the stories with which she had beguiled me during my childhood: the exploits of the gods, Siva, Vishnu and Brahma in which she fervently believed. I did not take her stories seriously. Perhaps she had seen certain frivolous behaviour among Mrs. Freeling’s guests and had construed it as the manner in which people acted when they had been smoking opium; and her concern for me had made her exaggerate what sheA had seen. I did wonder whether I ought to mention to my father what she had said; but as she implored me not to, I put the matter from my mind. There was so much more to think of, because two weeks after my father had spoken to me, despatches came from London.
    Colonel Bronsen-Grey was on his way to take over my father’s duties and we were to make immediate preparations for our departure.
    It seemed like fate. I could not help feeling very excited. This time I should not leave India with the same reluctance.
    Aubrey St. Clare was delighted, and when he heard that we were booked on the Aurora Star, he decided he would return home on the same ship.
    It proved the state of my feelings when I did not feel any great regret because we were going with him.
     
    We had no home in England and my father decided that we should stay at an hotel while we looked for a temporary home and he ascertained from the War Office what his duties would be. When he knew we could set about finding a more