No More Learning

"But I am Brahmin, Sahib--a high-caste Brahmin. By your soul, by your
father's soul, do not make me do this thing! "

"Brahmin or no Brahmin, by my soul and my father's soul, in you go! "
I said, and, seizing him by the shoulders, I crammed his head into
the mouth of the burrow, kicked the rest of him in, and, sitting down,
covered my face with my hands.

At the end of a few minutes I heard a rustle and a creak; then Gunga
Dass in a sobbing, choking whisper speaking to himself; then a soft
thud--and I uncovered my eyes.

The dry sand had turned the corpse entrusted to its keeping into a
yellow-brown mummy. I told Gunga Dass to stand off while I examined it.

The body--clad in an olive-green hunting-suit much stained and worn,
with leather pads on the shoulders--was that of a man between thirty and
forty, above middle height, with light, sandy hair, long mustache, and a
rough unkempt beard. The left canine of the upper jaw was missing, and
a portion of the lobe of the right ear was gone. On the second finger of
the left hand was a ring--a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, with
a monogram that might have been either "B. K. " or "B. L. " On the third
finger of the right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled
cobra, much worn and tarnished. Gunga Dass deposited a handful of
trifles he had picked out of the burrow at my feet, and, covering the
face of the body with my handkerchief, I turned to examine these.
I give
the full list in the hope that it may lead to the identification of the
unfortunate man:

1. Bowl of a briarwood pipe, serrated at the edge; much worn and
blackened; bound with string at the crew.

2. Two patent-lever keys; wards of both broken.

3. Tortoise-shell-handled penknife, silver or nickel name-plate, marked
with monogram "B. K. "

4. Envelope, postmark Undecipherable, bearing a Victorian stamp,
addressed to "Miss Mon-" (rest illegible) -"ham-'nt. "

5. Imitation crocodile-skin notebook with pencil. First forty-five pages
blank; four and a half illegible; fifteen others filled with private
memoranda relating chiefly to three persons--a Mrs. L. Singleton,
abbreviated several times to "Lot Single," "Mrs. S. May," and
"Garmison," referred to in places as "Jerry" or "Jack.