Gil the Gunner - George Manville Fenn (people reading books .TXT) 📗

I was spared one trouble to add to my others that day, for the rajah did not come. If he had, I fear that he would have noticed my manner as being peculiar and strange. I dreaded, too, his encountering Dost, for, though Salaman and his companions had been easily imposed upon, now that I was in the secret, I forgot all about my having also been deceived, and felt that the rajah would see through the disguise at once.

It was then with a feeling of the most intense relief that I saw the nightfall, and felt now that he would not visit me that day.

Of course I lay listening that night in the tent, wondering whether Dost would make an attempt to visit me again, and then whether he was making his way back to where he expected to meet my troop, and “Oh!” I mentally ejaculated, “if I could only have been with him.”

The desire brought with it a despondent feeling and weary loneliness. I was very weak and miserable, thinking that perhaps I should never grow strong again, never mount my beautiful horse as of old. And then I fell a wondering for the first time in my life at myself; thinking what a weak, helpless creature a human being was, if he received a wound, for there seemed to be little reason for my long illness. I had had a blow on the head, and a cut on the arm—that was all. It never occurred to me then that my injuries were such as would have killed many men, and that it was my youth and vigorous health alone which had enabled me to bear all I had gone through.

The morning broke dull and lowering. My spirits were quite in the same key, and I trembled when I first encountered Salaman, looking at him sharply, to see if his eyes told tales of any particular excitement.

And they did; there was no mistaking their import; he was evidently in high glee, and that, I felt, could only mean one thing—the discovery and making prisoner of poor Dost, whose fate must be sealed.

But still Salaman made no communication; he only busied himself about his work, waiting on me, seeing to my tent, and then adjusting the sling for my wounded arm.

My breakfast was ready beneath the tree; and I walked to it feeling certainly stronger, while every day I passed I could not help noticing how beautifully clean and well prepared everything was, and how pleasant the life beneath the tent would have been, if my mind had only been at peace.

Salaman waited upon me with more than his usual ease, and twice over I saw him smiling, as if with greater satisfaction than ever; but still he did not speak, but appeared to avoid my eye, till I could bear it no longer. Feeling that something had occurred—a something which could only mean the discovery of Dost, and the credit he would get with the rajah—I at last asked him sharply what he was laughing at.

“I have good news for my lord,” he said eagerly; and to me his manner seemed to be full of sneering triumph.

“Well, what is it?” I said huskily.

“The holy man has gone?”

“To prison!” I exclaimed involuntarily, for that was my first thought.

“Oh no, my lord; away upon his long journey.”

“Dead!” I ejaculated.

Salaman looked at me wonderingly.

“Oh no, my Lord; that kind of old man very seldom dies. They live on and on and on, they are so hard and strange. I have seen many fakirs so thin and dry that they hardly seemed to be alive, but they were, and they went on living. I never saw a fakir die.”

“Then you mean that he has gone away on his travels—pilgrimage, we call it?”

“Yes, my lord, and he will not be here to curse you again.”

“When—when did he go?” I asked, taking up my coffee, so as to seem indifferent.

“Who knows, my lord? No one saw him leave. They come and they go, and some of them are always coming and going. They have no home. Perhaps he went in the night, perhaps as soon as it was day. And with all those wounds not healed, it is wonderful.”

I was already beginning to enjoy my breakfast at this glorious news, for Dost had evidently got away in safety, and his disguise would no doubt enable him to pass easily through the land.

“Well,” I said, speaking cheerfully now, “what is your other news?”

“Ah, that coffee has done my lord good,” said Salaman. “He smiles and looks brighter and better for his highness to see. I made that coffee myself, and it is fresh and good.”

“Beautiful, Salaman,” I said, emptying my cup, and longing for some good honest English milk; “but your news—your other news.”

“His highness is coming to-day.”

“How do you know?” I cried, the aroma departing from my coffee, and the chupatties beginning to taste bitter.

“A horseman rode over to bid me have refreshments ready for his highness this afternoon, which he will partake of with you, and afterwards the tents are to be taken down, bullock-waggons will come, and we shall sleep at the palace to-night. But my lord does not seem glad.”

“Glad?” I said bitterly. “Why, this means that I, too, am to go.”

“Yes, my lord; thy servant said so, and it is right. The great doctor spoke to me, and said that you wanted a change from here.”

“Oh no,” I cried.

“But the great doctor said so, my lord. He knows. My lord was nearly dead when he was brought here, but the good medicine brought him back to life, and now he is nearly strong. This place is good, and it was made ready for my lord, but it is very lonely, and the wild beasts are always about the tents at night.”

Salaman said no more, but walked away. He had already said too much.

I was in agony, and could think no more, for it appeared as if my chance had been thrown away. Only a few hours back, and Dost was talking to me, there, where my meal was spread, and I, his master, had let him go, instead of ordering him to take me away with him.

I bitterly reproached myself for what I looked upon as my weakness in giving way, though I know now that I did quite right, for of course I could not foresee so sudden a change. I had expected it, and we had discussed its probability, but I had hoped that there would be time for my rescue first.

“Once inside the city, Brace will not have much chance of getting me away,” I said to myself despondently; and then, as I sat thinking over my unhappy lot, and of the coming interview with the rajah, there was only one way in which I felt that I could help myself, and that was to seem worse instead of better when my captor came.

But I threw that idea aside directly; it was too contemptible.

“I must act like an English officer,” I said. “It would be despicable to sham, and he would see through it all at once.”

Like many another one in such a position, I gave up thinking at last, and prepared myself for the inevitable.

“After all,” I mused, “he may not think me well enough, and then there will be a respite. If he does say I am to go, well, I suppose it will be to a prison.”

I could not help feeling low-spirited, and the more so that on the other hand there was the temptation offered to me of going straight to a palace, and taking up at once my position, boy as I was, as the rajah’s most trusted leader of his troops.

The time went slowly on, and I sat expecting to hear the jingling of the escort’s accoutrements; but hour after hour passed, it would soon be sundown, and then there would be another day’s respite.

Salaman had made great preparations, and I was astonished at their extent, for I had not thought it possible so elaborate a meal could be prepared out there in the forest; but when I made some remark thereon, he only smiled and said—

“I have only to give orders, my lord, and messengers bring everything I want; but it is all in vain, the sun will sink directly, and his highness has given up coming to-day.”

Almost as he spoke, my heart beat, for in the distance there was the sound of a horse galloping.

“A messenger,” cried Salaman, excitedly, “to say his highness cannot come.”

I felt that he must be right, for, though I listened, I could hear no more. It was evidently only one horse. He was not coming that day.

I uttered a sigh of relief, and strained my eyes to watch the opening between the trees, through which directly after a handsomely dressed horseman cantered, sprang from his steed, and threw the rein to an attendant, after which he marched up to me, and bowed low as he approached, to say only two words, which drove away all the hopes I had been nursing.

“His highness!” he said, and I knew then that he was the avant-courier who had galloped on to announce his lord’s coming. After which he stepped on one side and drew his sword, to stand on guard waiting for the rajah’s entry.

For a time, as I strove hard to be firm and ready to meet the greatest enemy I had, I listened vainly for some sign of his drawing near, but for a long space there was nothing but the customary bird-cries from the forest. At last, though, there was the unmistakable sound of approaching cavalry, and feeling firmer, I still sat with my eyes fixed upon the narrow opening, schooling my lips to utter the final word, “No,” when he should come and repeat his offer.

“He will not kill me,” I said to myself, “only put me in prison to make me weary and glad to accept his offer; but he does not know how obstinate I can be.”

The open space surrounded by trees was now flooded with the rich orange light of sundown, and as I listened to the approach of horse, and saw a troop of showily dressed men ride in, I could not help a lingering sensation coming over me, and the temptation would, I felt, be a hard one to battle.

But first one and then another party rode in, till quite a hundred men had formed up, with their dress looking brilliant in the sun’s horizontal rays. But there was no rajah, and I had begun to wonder at his non-appearance on his favourite Arab.

The wonder passed away directly after, for all at once there was a peculiar soft tread and rustling that was very familiar, sounding quite distinct from the heavy sharp trampling of horse, and directly I saw the painted head and gilded tusks of an enormous elephant come from among the trees. Its head was covered with a scarlet cloth, heavily fringed with gold, upon which sat its white-robed mahout, and the rest of the housings were also of the same brilliant red, embroidered and fringed most heavily with gold, the trappings completely hiding the huge animal’s sides, while the ropes which secured the massive silver howdah were also twisted and tasselled with the rich yellow metal, much of which was used to compose the rails and front of the canopied structure in which the rajah was seated, completing what was a dazzling object towering far above