THE ADVICE OF BÂL NARÎN
Tikaram was dead. His was an instance, and not a solitary one, of the devotion of which the sons of the soil were capable, both to the children under their charge, and to the men and women who in the days of their power had treated them with consistent kindness. While his co-religionists covered his face and built hastily a pyre of dead wood to consume his body, Tom went apart and, with a beating heart, undid the many foldings of the paper.
The writing within was in Grace's hand. He saw this at a glance, but the words were so faintly traced that he had great difficulty in deciphering them. He did not, in fact, make it all out at once. But for us it has been transcribed, and we are able to give it as it was written down.
'This is for Tom. I know he is looking for me. When I have an opportunity I shall throw it down, addressed to him in his Indian name, and some one, perhaps hoping for reward, will take it to him——' A break, and then, 'I cannot write. I am watched day and night. What will the end be? I dare not even imagine. But I must not die while Kit is living.' Another short break, and then in tremulous, very minute characters, 'I am afraid of this man. There is a wicked look in his face. I think he is vindictive; but what can I have done to offend him? To-day he threatened to separate me from Kit. If he does I know what I will do. Don't fear for me, my beloved ones. My peace-bringer is still at my heart. When the occasion comes I know how to use it——' After this last entry a considerable interval must have elapsed. To those who read it afterwards it seemed as if some mental shock had passed over the poor girl, shattering her nerves. When she wrote again it was with a sort of surprise. 'I forgot about my plan—' so the next entry runs—'but did I have a plan? My mind goes from me. Everything is confused. I feel as if I had been dead, and had come to life again. Perhaps I have. But here is my darling Kit sleeping sweetly beside me in the hut where we have been resting all day. Is he dead too? Or who is dead? Everything is confused, and I cannot understand. But I think he and I are alive. What we are doing here I don't know in the least. Some one somewhere, who seemed kind, dressed us in native dresses and stained our faces, and some one else gave us a cart and a bullock, and so we go on, day after day, day after day. Kit says we are going into Nepaul, for the people there are kind to the English. The poor English! I wonder how many of them have been killed! Kit says we are English, too. I wonder if that is true. I thought I was English once. I thought I was a woman and a lady, but that must have been in another life——' Ah! how strange and pitiful it was! Spelling it out with pain and difficulty, Tom felt now and then as if his heart would break. If he could only weep as Bertie Liston had done! But he could not. His eyes were dry and hot, and a fire seemed to be burning within him, and his breath came and went in panting sobs like one in the agonies of death.
The last words were more clearly written, and the collected way in which they were put together, contrasting vividly with the incoherence of what went before, gave him a little glimmer of hope.
'I have slept, and I am better, and I remember now what I intended to do when I first began to write this. There is a good man here—a hermit or holy man, who has penetrated our disguise, and who pities us. He has heard from those who have heard it from others that fugitives have been inquired for in the villages hereabouts. He advises us, however, not to linger here. The Ghoorka army are on their march southwards, and the people are excited. But he will try that my scroll may reach those who are trying to find me. I think Tom is one. If he finds me—but I remember that he may see this. I thank him with all my heart for what he has done, for what, as I believe, he is still doing for us. To-morrow we go into the jungle. The good hermit will guide us. We go towards the mountains, and we hope to succeed in crossing them. If this is found let those who find it look for us in the jungle or on the hills. There may yet be time to save Kit. He is the noblest and bravest little fellow that ever lived.'
That was all. The suspicion which had led Tikaram first, and later the young rajah, to search for them in the jungle was confirmed, but there was no further clue. These might be the last words of the heroic girl before darkness swallowed her up. And yet it was with a strange rapture—a sense of exultation such as he had not known since he fleshed his maiden sword on the slaughterers of women and children—that Tom pressed the dear missive to his heart. She was hoping for his help, counting on him as her defender. And since she had lived through so much, was it not possible that still, even at this eleventh hour, he might find her? He dared not think of it. It was too good, too joyful. Yet for a few instants the warm blood welled to his heart, and his pulses beat a triumphant measure, and it seemed as if all—all he had suffered, his toil, his depression, his despair, his horror, was as nothing. Found! Brought back in safety; cared for with so deep a tenderness that the terrors of the way she had gone, and the misery and humiliation of her capture, would be forgotten. His heart swelled. The love it contained made it fit to break. 'It is too much, too much,' he said to himself. 'I cannot bear it.'
And then he remembered suddenly that his task was not done, nay, that the hardest part of it was to come, and he tried to be stern, and to brace up his energies to do what lay before him.
They had halted in a small open glade. The pyre on which the body of Tikaram had been placed was already kindled, and the smoke was rising into the still air and floating away in tremulous waves, like heat made visible. The birds of prey that had been hovering over the litter were sailing away sullenly, uttering harsh cries. The men of both cavalcades, taking advantage of the rest, had tethered their horses and, gathered together in little groups, were lighting small fires to cook their evening meal. On all sides they were hemmed in by the jungle, and, as the shades of evening gathered, strange noises as of shrieks and sobbings echoed and re-echoed through the dense and matted underwood.
Tom had gone apart to read the paper. When the strong determination to act at once came upon him, he called up the chief of his little escort and Hoosanee. The latter, at his request, fetched two or three of those who had been with Tikaram. When they were all together Tom addressed them in Hindoostani. He told them as much as he could of the paper that had fallen into his hands, expressed it as his conviction that those he sought were still wandering in the jungle, and asked their advice.
Not one of them, not even Hoosanee, but gave it as his opinion that the fugitives were long since dead. If they had crossed the Terai, which was unlikely, they could never have crossed the mountains. The Ghoorkas were for giving up the search in despair. Hoosanee said nothing; his eyes followed those of his master. Tom asked temperately if, in their opinion, there was any fear to be entertained of their encountering detachments of the rebels here. They believed not. Later there would, no doubt, be many fugitives from the revolted troops, but there had not as yet been any English victory of sufficient importance to cause the rebels to despair. If they fled from one place they would join their comrades in another. But jungle-fever was a worse enemy than revolted sepoys.
Tom said he knew this, and he therefore proposed that the greater number of those who had come with him and Tikaram as escorts should return to their respective regiments. Two or three of the strongest he would like to retain in case of accident. But even as regarded this he would wish them to judge for themselves. The coolies must go with him to take on the carts with provision for the way and camp equipage, and if his Ghoorka friends would do him a kindness they would take back with them his friend and servant Hoosanee, recommending him to the kindness of the Captain Sahib, Gambier Singh, until such time as he could himself return.
He was interrupted by the sound of sobbing, and, looking down, saw Hoosanee at his feet. 'Have I offended my master?' said the poor fellow. 'Have I been indifferent in this search, or does he reproach me with failing in my service to him? If I have, let him speak to me! Nay, let him strike me! I will take punishment from his hands. But let him not send me away from him!'
'My good Hoosanee,' said Tom very gently. 'Do you not see that it is of you I am thinking? You are ill. You cannot deny it.'
'If that is all,' said Hoosanee rising, 'I will venture to disobey your Excellency's command.'
'How? you will be rebellious!' said Tom smiling.
'I will do what I know is for the best. Does my master think that he could go on without me?'
'But consider, Hoosanee—if you were really ill——!
'Master, if I die, I die. I will never be burdensome to you. Let me go on!'
'If you must, there is no more to be said. But the responsibility is your own,' said Tom gravely.
The Ghoorkas meanwhile had been discussing their plans. When, looking radiant, Hoosanee stood aside, one of them stepped forward, and spoke. The rajah, he said, had spoken well. If some of them must die, there was no reason why all should meet with the same fate, and, in the province whence they had come, good men were wanted. They proposed that six of the strongest from the two escorts should be chosen to attend the rajah on his farther journey, and that the rest should return to their captain.
Tom thanked them, and gave orders that all arrangements should be made for the breaking up of the party.
When they had withdrawn he held a further consultation with Hoosanee and the cleverest of his Ghoorka guides. This man had felt the curious magnetic power which Tom generally exercised over Orientals, and had become almost as much devoted to him as his own servants. Uninvited, he had joined the conference, and he now threw himself at his feet and, having begged that he might be one of those whose services he would retain, answered, with readiness and perfect knowledge, his questions about the country. No one, as it happened, could have been better acquainted with the low country that lies at the foot of the hills which separate the Nepaul valley from the plains of North-West India. The jungle-fever had no power over him. He breathed more freely on this pestilential plain than in the high mountain valleys. Moreover, the wild tribes, or Aswalias, as they are generally called, who inhabited the jungle of the Terai, knew and respected him. Had he not again and again brought down great Shikaris, or hunters from the hills, who slew the tigers that devastated their fields and carried off their little ones? The great reptiles themselves that, like malignant spirits, shuddered through the long grass of the jungle, had no terror for Bâl Narîn, and he carried with him potions and unguents that could steal the poison from the deadliest snake-bites. Though a Ghoorka, therefore, and, as such, a natural enemy of the wild Aswalias, he had long been counted their friend. Bâl Narîn shared his countrymen's admiration for Europeans, of whom he had been frequently the companion and guide. It was to fit himself for their service that he had practised Hindoostani, which he spoke with quite sufficient ease to carry on a conversation, and, as this was a rare art amongst the Ghoorkas, it made him all the more valuable. His European friends called him Billy—a trick into which Tom fell with a readiness that betrayed him at once to the keen perception of Bâl Narîn, who had made up his mind long since that he was far more English than Indian. The discovery, however, had rather increased than diminished his reverence for his new lord, to whom he was now almost as much devoted as Hoosanee himself.
These three, then, set themselves to discuss their plans.
Bâl Narîn stated that they were one day's direct march from the foot of the hills. The road was not, at that time, nearly so good as it has since become; but he was able to speak of it as comparatively safe and easy. With the ascent of the hills, the difficulties would begin. Exceedingly precipitous, choked with low underwood and haunted with wild beasts, the belt of country which lay between the pestilential swamp they were now crossing and the middle slopes of Sisagarhi was almost as dangerous as the Terai, and far more exhausting to the traveller. The question was, could a woman and child have crossed it alone? Bâl Narîn thought not. He inclined to the opinion that if they were living—a point concerning which Tom would admit no doubt—they were still on the plain. Hoosanee, on the other hand, who had witnessed the heroism of which Grace was capable when she had others than herself to defend, was loud in his belief that she had set herself to face the perils of Sisagarhi, and that she had succeeded in her attempt.
Above the lower belt of which I have spoken, and on the middle slopes of the first range of mountains, there are glorious forests and delicious pastures. In this favoured region, where the temperature is that of southern Europe at its best, the oak and the chestnut, the ash and the elm, the laurel and the magnolia, are to be found in company with the pipul, the banyan and the acacia. In the midst of this wealth of vegetation there are pretty little villages inhabited by quiet cultivators of the Magar and Newar tribes—Buddhist for the most part, and people of gentle life, over whom the Ghoorka warriors exercise lordship, in return for a protectorate that is gratefully welcomed. There are posts here and there, along the road over the pass, in which soldiers are stationed, to drive back the savage and predatory tribes from the south, who, since the settlement of the country early in the century, have been able to do little mischief besides such as might arise from an occasional cattle raid. It was the fear that these wild tribes, held in check on one side by the British and on the other by his own stout little soldiers, might become powerful and overrun the country that had induced Jung Bahadoor to originate the policy, which he carried through with such consistency and success throughout the year of the rebellion. Hoosanee, then, gave it as his opinion that the fugitives had reached this middle region, and found a temporary resting-place in one of the villages. He proposed that they should press forward without an hour's delay, make for the foot of the hills, and set themselves to climb them. As for Tom, he wished to go both ways. If they had reached the further side of the jungle, he could not bear that they should remain without help one moment longer than was absolutely necessary, while, on the other hand, if they were here on the plain hiding, it might be, in some miserable hut, how terrible it would be to leave them to their fate!
'Hoosanee,' he said at last. 'Do you really wish to please me?'
'Do I wish to please my master?' cried Hoosanee. 'How can he ask me?'
'I ask you, Hoosanee, because I must put your affection to the severest test. It has come to this. We must divide our party. You must go one way and I another. Listen, and do not speak until I tell you! I would divide myself if I could. I would climb Sisagarhi to search for Miss Grace there, and I would hunt this jungle through and through, in case she should be hiding here still. How can I do it? In one way only. You are my second self, my good friend, and you must take part of my duty from me.'
'I will stay then. My master shall climb Sisagarhi.'
'No, Hoosanee. It is you who shall go on. Be silent! I cannot allow you to decide this. I have my reasons for what I am doing. Listen again! You shall take three of the Ghoorkas, and a runner to send back with intelligence as soon as you have gained it. I will take the others, and Billy who knows the people shall go with me. Come at once! I will divide provisions and send you on.'
And so it was settled to Hoosanee's distress, for, although he saw at once that it was necessary to the success of his enterprise that he and his master should separate, he would have preferred to reserve to himself the more dangerous part. As for Tom, while he felt that the arrangement he had proposed was the only one which offered any hope of a good issue to their task, he was thankful to have succeeded in sending off Hoosanee to the higher latitudes. In the meantime, Bâl Narîn was far more useful to himself than even his own servant could have been.