Thus was I lost in useless speculation one sultry August evening when old Ben, my
body servant, handed me a telegram.
By this time I could understand a few words of their strange language, and when the colonel asked me if I would prefer to remain at the post as his
body servant, I signified my willingness as emphatically as possible, for I had seen enough of the brutality of the common soldiers toward their white slaves to have no desire to start out upon a march of unknown length, chained by the neck, and driven on by the great whips that a score of the soldiers carried to accelerate the speed of their charges.
He was not accustomed to keeping a
body servant, and, as his aim was to make a fortune, will ye nill ye, he managed, even now, in his hours of pride and self-indulgence, to get along without one.
He must have a footman to carry his walking-stick; a
body servant to hold up his opera-glasses--"
He was a sort of
body servant and bodyguard of Sir Isaac.
A dozen officers of the court with several
body servants were grouped behind the jeddak and his guest, eager listeners to the conversation--so eager on the part of one of the servants that he was twice rebuked by a noble for his forwardness in pushing himself ahead of his betters to view the intricate mechanism of the wonderful "controlling destination compass," as the thing was called.