"But I thought you were in a cart, dying!" "In a cart, yes!" he said.

"Dying, no--although that was no fault of somebody's!" I begged him to explain, and while we watched the camels cross our track--( God knows, sahib, why they did not grow suspicious and follow along it)--he told me how he had sat on the great rock, not very sleepy, but thinking, chin on knee, when suddenly some man crawled up from behind and struck him a heavy blow.
"Feel my head," said he, and I felt under his turban.

There was a bruise the size of my folded fist.

I swore--as who would not?
"Is it deep ?" I said, still watching the camels, and before he answered me he sent the trooper to go and find his horse.
"Superficial," he said then.

"By the favor of God but a water bruise.