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

“You are an old friend, Doctor, and you will understand my case, and make more allowances for it than most people would. When I first came out here I dare say you heard some sort of reports as to why I had left the army and had afterwards entered the Civil Service.”

“There were some stupid rumors,” the Doctor said, “that you had gone home on sick leave just after the battle of Chillianwalla, and had then sold out, because you had shown the white feather. I need not say that I did not give any credit to it; there is always gossip flying about as to the reasons a man leaves the army.”

“It was quite true, Doctor. It is a hideous thing to say, but constitutionally I am a coward.”

“I cannot believe it,” the Doctor said warmly. “Now that I know you, you are the last man of whom I would credit such a thing.”

“It is the bane of my life,” Bathurst went on. “It is my misfortune, for I will not allow it is my fault. In many things I am not a coward. I think I could face any danger if the danger were a silent one, but I cannot stand noise. The report of a gun makes me tremble all over, even when it is a blank cartridge that is fired. When I was born my father was in India. A short time before I came into the world my mother had a great fright. Her house in the country was broken into by burglars, who entered the room and threatened to blow out her brains if she moved; but the alarm was given, the men servants came down armed, there was a struggle in her room, pistol shots were fired, and the burglars were overpowered and captured. My mother fainted and was ill for weeks afterwards—in fact, until the time I was born; and she died a few days later, never having, the doctor said, recovered from the shock she had suffered that night.

“I grew up a weakly, timid boy—the sort of boy that is always bullied at school. My father, as you know, was a general officer, and did not return home until I was ten years old. He was naturally much disappointed in me, and I think that added to my timidity, for it grew upon me rather than otherwise. Morally, I was not a coward. At school I can say that I never told a lie to avoid punishment, and my readiness to speak the truth did not add to my popularity among the other boys, and I used to be called a sneak, which was even more hateful than being called a coward.

“As I grew up I shook off my delicacy, and grew, as you see, into a strong man. I then fought several battles at school; I learnt to ride, and came to have confidence in myself, and though I had no particular fancy for the army my father's heart was so set on it that I offered no objection. That the sound of a gun was abhorrent to me I knew, for the first time my father put a gun in my hand and I fired it, I fainted, and nothing would persuade me to try again. Still I thought that this was the result of nervousness as to firing it myself, and that I should get over it in time.

“A month or two after I was gazetted I went out to India with the regiment, and arrived just in time to get up by forced marches to take part in the battle of Chillianwalla. The consequence was that up to that time I literally had heard no musketry practice.

“Of the events of that battle I have no remembrance whatever; from the moment the first gun was fired to the end of the day I was as one paralyzed. I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I moved mechanically; but happily my will or my instinct kept me in my place in the regiment. When all was over, and silence followed the din, I fell to the ground insensible. Happily for me the doctors declared I was in a state of high fever, and I so remained for a fortnight. As soon as I got better I was sent down the country, and I at once sent in my papers and went home. No doubt the affair was talked of, and there were whispers as to the real cause of my illness. My father was terribly angry when I returned home and told him the truth of the matter. That his son should be a coward was naturally an awful blow to him. Home was too unhappy to be endured, and when an uncle of mine, who was a director on the Company's Board, offered me a berth in the Civil Service, I thankfully accepted it, believing that in that capacity I need never hear a gun fired again.

“You will understand, then, the anxiety I am feeling owing to these rumors of disaffection among the Sepoys, and the possibility of anything like a general mutiny.

“It is not of being killed that I have any fear; upon the contrary, I have suffered so much in the last eight years from the consciousness that the reason why I left the army was widely known, that I should welcome death, if it came to me noiselessly; but the thought that if there is trouble I shall assuredly not be able to play my part like a man fills me with absolute horror, and now more than ever.

“So you will understand now why the picture I saw, in which I was fighting in the middle of the Sepoys, is to me not only improbable, but simply impossible. It is a horrible story to have to tell. This is the first time I have opened my lips on the subject since I spoke to my father, but I know that you, both as a friend and a doctor, will pity rather than blame me.”