The Tiger of Mysore: A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib, G. A. Henty [different e readers .txt] 📗

them so strongly--Surajah quite laughed at the idea. Anyhow, it saved our lives.

"And how are you getting on, Annie? Are you happy?"

"Oh, so happy!" she exclaimed. "At least, I was until your mother got ill, and I was working very hard at my lessons; but of course that has all been stopped, as far as taking them from her is concerned. But I have gone on working, and the Rajah's sons have been very good, and helped me sometimes, and I begin to read words of two letters. And what has brought you back so soon?"

"That I can't tell you yet, Annie. I will only tell you that it is not bad news; and no one but my uncle will know more than that, till I have told my mother--even my aunt won't hear it."

"Has Surajah come back too, Dick?"

"Yes; I heard horses in the courtyard just now, and I have no doubt it was him. I rode on first, being anxious to see my mother."

They chatted for a few minutes. Then the Rajah came to the door, and called Dick into the next room.

"I have settled your father in the room at the other end of the gallery, Dick. He agreed with me that it was better for him to keep there, by himself, until you have told your mother that he is here. I have just ordered a meal to be sent, and after that will send my barber in to shave him. He says your mother will never recognise him, with all that hair on his face. I am going to see if something cannot be done to take the stain off his face, and shall then set half a dozen tailors to work on some dark blue cloth, to turn him out a suit before tomorrow morning, in what he calls sailor fashion, so that he may appear before your mother in something like the style in which she remembers him."

A few minutes later Gholla came in, and said that Mrs. Holland was ready for Dick to go in to her. Dick found his mother looking pale and weak; but the joy of his coming had already brightened her eyes, and given a faint flush to her cheeks.

"I have been so dreadfully anxious, Dick," she said, after the first embrace. "I was certain you had been in some terrible danger."

"I have been, but thank God I escaped; owing, I think, to the warning Annie says you tried to give me. But we must not talk about that now. I will tell you all the story tomorrow. You are not fit to talk. You must take some broth, and some wine, and a sleeping draught; and I hope you will go off, and not wake up till tomorrow morning.

"Now, you do as I tell you. While you are drinking your broth, I will go in and take something to eat, for I have had nothing today, and am as hungry as a hunter. Then I will come back, and sit by you till you go off to sleep."

He was not long away, but he was met at the door by his aunt, who said:

"She has gone off already, Dick. I have no doubt that she will sleep many hours, but if she wakes, I will let you know at once."

"If that is the case, Gholla," the Rajah, who had come in at the same moment, said, "I can let you into a secret, which no one but myself knows yet, but which, now that Margaret is asleep, can be told."

Gholla was very pleased when she heard the news, and Dick went off at once to his father. It was a great relief, to the latter, to know that his wife had gone off to sleep, and would probably be well enough to have the news broken to her in the morning.

"I hear that you are preparing for the meeting, Father, by getting yourself shaved, and having a blue cloth suit made?"

"Yes, Dick. I should like to be as much like my old self as possible."

"I don't think Mother will care much what you look like, Father. Still, it is very natural that you should want to get rid of all that hair."

"What bothers me, lad," Captain Holland went on, putting his hand to the back of his neck, "is this shaved spot here. Of course, with the turban on and the native rig, it was all right, but it will look a rum affair in English clothes."

Dick could not help laughing at his father's look of perplexity.

"Well, Father, it is just the same with myself. I have not changed yet, but when I do, the hair above, which is now tucked up under the turban, will be quite long enough to come down to the nape of the neck, and hide that bare place till the hair grows again."

"Yes; I did not think of that. My hair is long enough to come down over my shoulders. I was going to tell the barber to cut it short all over, but I will see now that he allows for that."

"Now, Father, do you mind my bringing in Annie Mansfield? I know she will be wanting to keep close to me all day, and I should never be able to get rid of her, without telling her about you."

"Bring her in by all means, Dick. She must be a plucky young girl, by what you said about her."

"Where have you been, Dick?" Annie inquired, when Dick went out a few minutes later. "I have been looking for you everywhere. Nobody had seen you, unless it was the Rajah. I asked him, and he said that little girls must not ask questions, and then laughed.

"You have not brought home another white girl?" she exclaimed suddenly.

"Would it not be very nice for you to have a companion, Annie?"

"No," she said sharply; "I should not like it at all."

"Well, I will take you in to see her, and I think you will like her.

"No; I am only joking," he broke off, as he saw tears start into her eyes. "It is not another girl. But you shall see for yourself."

He took her hand, and led her to his father's room.

"There, Annie, this is the gentleman who has come back with me this time."

Annie looked at Captain Holland in surprise, and then turned her eyes to Dick for an explanation.

"He is a respectable-looking old native, isn't he, Annie?"

"Yes, he looks respectable," Annie said gravely; "but he doesn't look very old. Why has he come down with you, Dick? He can't have been a slave."

"But I have, lass," the captain said, in English, to Annie's intense astonishment. "I have been in their hands a year or so longer than you were."

Annie turned impulsively to Dick, and grasped his arm.

"Oh, Dick," she said, in an excited whisper. "Is it--is it your father, after all?"

"Ay, lass," the captain answered for him. "I am the boy's father, and a happy father, too, as you may guess, at finding I have such a son. And I hear he has been a good friend to you, too."

"Oh, he has, he has indeed!" Annie cried, running forward and seizing his hands in both of hers. "I don't think there ever was anyone so kind and good."

"What bosh, Annie!" Dick exclaimed, almost crossly.

"Never mind what he says, my dear. You and I know all about it. Now we can do very well without him, for a time. He can go and tell his uncle and cousins all about his adventures, which, I have no doubt, they are dying to hear; and you and I can sit here, and exchange confidences until my barber comes. I don't look much like an Englishman now, but I hope that they will be able to get me something that will take this stain off my face."

Mrs. Holland did not wake till evening. She seemed very much better, and had a short chat with Dick. She would have got up, had he not told her that he should be going to bed himself, in a short time, and that all his story would keep very well until the morning, when he hoped to find her quite herself again.

By dint of the application of various unguents, and a vast amount of hard scrubbing, Captain Holland restored his face to its original hue.

"I look a bit sunburnt," he said, "but I have often come back, browner than this, from some of my voyages."

"You look quite like yourself, in your portrait at home, Father," Dick said. "It is the shaving and cutting your hair, even more than getting off the dye, that has made the difference. I don't think you look much older than you did then, except that there are a few grey hairs."

"I shall look better tomorrow, Dick, when I get these outlandish things off. I have been trying on my new suit, and I think it will do, first rate. Those clothes that you wore on board ship, and handed to them as a model, gave them the idea of what I wanted."

And indeed, the next morning, when Captain Holland appeared in his new suit, Dick declared that he looked just as if he had walked down from his picture. The ranee had agreed to break the news to Mrs. Holland, as soon as she was dressed. She came into the room where the others were waiting for breakfast, and said to Captain Holland:

"Come. She knows all, and has borne it well."

She led him to the door of Mrs. Holland's room, and opened it. As he entered there was a cry of:

"Oh Jack! My Jack!"

Then she closed it behind him, and left husband and wife together.

A few days afterwards, there was a family consultation.

"Now, Dick," his father said, "we must settle about your plans. You know we have decided upon going home, by the next ship, and taking Annie with us, without waiting for her father's letter. Of course I shall have no difficulty in finding out, when I get there, what his address is. I have promised your mother to give up the sea, and settle down again at Shadwell, where I can meet old friends and shall feel at home. We have had a long talk over what you said the other night, about your insisting that we should take the money those jewels of yours fetch. Well, we won't do that."

"Then I will sell them, Father," Dick said positively, "and give the money to a hospital!"

"I have not finished yet, Dick. We won't take all the money, but we have agreed that we will take a quarter of it. Of course, we could manage on my savings, as your mother did when I was away. We shall lose the little allowance the Company made her, but I shall buy a share in a ship with my money, which will bring in a good deal better rate of interest than she got for it in the funds, so we could still manage very well. Still, as we feel that it would please you, we agree to take a quarter of the money the jewels fetch; and that, with what I have, will give us an income well beyond our wants. So that is settled.

"Now, about yourself. I really don't think that you can do better than what you proposed, when we were talking of it yesterday. You would be like a fish out of water, in England, if you had nothing to occupy your time; and therefore can't do better than enter the Service here, and remain, at any rate, for a few years.

"As your commission was dated from the time you joined Lord Cornwallis, two and a half years ago, you won't be at the bottom of the tree, and while you are serving you will want no money here, and the interest of your capital will be accumulating. If I invest it in shipping for you, you will get eight or ten percent for it; and as I shall pick good ships, commanded by men I know, and will divide the money up in small shares, among half a dozen of them, there will be practically no risk--and of course the vessels will be insured. So that, at the end of ten years, by reinvesting the profits, your money will be more than doubled, and you will have a nice fortune when you choose to come home, even if the jewels do not fetch anything like what you expect."

A week later the party journeyed down to Madras, where they stayed for a fortnight. Dick, on his arrival, called upon the governor, who congratulated him most heartily when he heard that he had succeeded in finding and releasing his father, and at once appointed him to one of the native cavalry regiments; and his parents had the satisfaction of seeing him in