Rujub, the Juggler, G. A. Henty [top fiction books of all time .TXT] 📗

drove them before them like chaff. They will have harder work next time, but I have no shadow of fear of the result.”

Then their talk went back to Deennugghur and of their friends there—the Doolans, the Hunters, the Rintouls, and others—and Isobel wept freely over their fate.

“Next to my uncle I shall miss the Doctor,” she said.

“He was an awfully good fellow,” Bathurst said, “and was the only real friend I have had since I came to India, I would have done anything for him.”

“When shall we start?” Isobel asked presently.

“Directly the sun goes down a little. You would find it terribly hot now. I have been talking it over with Rujub, and he says it is better not to make a long journey today. We are not more than twenty miles from Dong, and it would not do to move in that direction until we know how things have gone; therefore, if we start at three o'clock and walk till seven or eight, it will be quite far enough.”

“He seems a wonderful man,” said Isobel. “You remember that talk we had at dinner, before we went to see him at the Hunters!”

“Yes,” he said. “As you know, I was a believer then, and so was the Doctor. I need not say that I believe still more now that these men do wholly unaccountable feats. He put the sentry outside the walls of your prison and five out of your eight warders so sound asleep that they did not wake during the struggle I had with the others. That, of course, was mesmerism. His messages to you were actually sent by means of his daughter. She was put in a sort of trance, in which she saw you and told us what you were doing, and communicated the message her father gave her to you. He could not send you a message nor tell me about you when you were first at Bithoor, because he said Rabda was not in sympathy with you, but after she had seen you and touched you and you had kissed her, she was able to do so. There does not appear to me to be anything beyond the powers of nature in that, though doubtless powers were called into play of which at present we know nothing. But we do know that minds act upon each other. Possibly certain persons in sympathy with each other may be able to act upon each other from a distance, especially when thrown into the sort of trance which is known as the clairvoyant state. I always used to look upon that as humbug, but I need hardly say I shall in future be ready to believe almost anything. He professes to have other and even greater powers than what we have seen. At any rate, he can have no motive in deceiving me when he has risked his life to help me. Do you know, Rabda offered to go into the prison—her father could have got her an order to pass in—and then to let you go out in her dress while she remained in your stead. I could not accept the sacrifice even to save you, and I was sure had I done so you yourself would have refused to leave.”

“Of course. But how good of her. Please tell her that you have told me, and how grateful I am for her offer.”

Bathurst called Rabda, who was sitting a short distance away.

She took the hand that Isobel held out to her and placed it against her forehead.

“My life is yours, sahib,” she said simply to Bathurst. “It was right that I should give it for this lady you love.”

“What does she say?” Isobel asked.

“She says that she owed me her life for that tiger business, you know, and was ready to give it for you because I had set my mind on saving you.”

“Is that what she really said, Mr. Bathurst?” Isobel asked quietly, for he had hesitated a little in changing its wording.

“That was the sense of it, I can assure you. Not only was she ready to make the sacrifice, but her father consented to her doing so. These Hindoos are capable of gratitude, you see. There are not many English who would be ready thus to sacrifice themselves for a man who had accidentally, as I may say, saved their lives.”

“Not accidentally, Mr. Bathurst. Why do you always try to run yourself down? I suppose you will say next you saved my life by an accident.”

“The saving of your life is due chiefly to these natives.”

“But they were only your instruments, Mr. Bathurst; they had no interest in saving me. You had bought their services at the risk of your life, and in saving me they were paying that debt to you.”

At three o'clock they prepared for the start. Bathurst had exchanged the warder's dress for one of a peasant, which they had brought with them. The woods were of no great width, and Rujub said they had better follow the road now.

“No one will suspect us of being anything but what we seem,” he said. “Should we meet any peasants, their talk will be with you and me. They will ask no questions about the women; but if there is a woman among them, and she speaks, Rabda will answer her.”

For hours they had heard dull sounds in the air, which Bathurst had recognized at once as distant artillery, showing that the fight was going on near Dong.

“The Sepoys are making a stout resistance, or the firing would not last so long,” he said to Rujub, as they walked through the wood towards the road.

“They have two positions to defend, sahib. The Nana's men will fight first at a strong village two miles beyond Dong; if they are beaten there, they will fight again at the bridge I told you of.”

“That would partly account for it; but the Sepoys must be fighting much better than they did at Futtehpore, for there, as you said, the white troops swept the Sepoys before them.”

When they reached the edge of the wood Bathurst said, “I will see that the road is clear before we go out. If anyone saw us issuing out of the wood they might wonder what we had been after.”

He went to the edge of the bushes and looked down the long straight road. There was only a solitary figure in sight. It seemed to be an old man walking lame with a stick. Bathurst was about to turn and tell the others to come out, when he saw the man stop suddenly, turn round to look back along the road, stand with his head bent as if listening, then run across the road with much more agility than he had before seemed to possess, and plunge in among the trees.

“Wait,” he said to those behind him, “something is going on. A peasant I saw in the road has suddenly dived into the wood as if he was afraid of being pursued. Ah!” he exclaimed a minute later, “there is a party of horsemen coming along at a gallop—get farther back into the wood.”

Presently they heard the rapid trampling of horses, and looking through the bushes they saw some twenty sowars of one of the native cavalry regiments dash past.