Heideck shook his friend’s hand with emotion.
“You make it difficult for me to thank you as you deserve. Without your intervention, my existence would have come to an inglorious close, and the proposal you now make to me is a new proof of your amiable sympathy. But you will not be vexed if I decline your offer—will you? It would certainly be a great honour to serve in your splendid army, but you see I cannot dispose of myself as I would, but must, as a soldier, return to my post irrespective of the difficulties I may have to encounter. I beg you—Lord! what’s that? in this land of miracles even the dead come to life again.”
The astonishment that prompted this question was a very natural one, for the lean, dark-skinned little man who had just appeared at the entrance of the tent was no other than his faithful servant Morar Gopal whom he had believed to be dead. Round his forehead he wore a fresh bandage. For a moment he stood stock-still at the entrance to the tent, and his dark eyes beamed with pleasure at having found his master again unharmed.
Hardly able to restrain his emotion, Morar Gopal advanced towards Heideck, prostrated himself on the ground, Hindu fashion, in order to touch the earth with his forehead, and then sprang to his feet with all the appearance of the greatest joy.
But Heideck was scarcely less moved than the other, and pressed the brown hand of his faithful servant warmly.
“These lunatics did not kill you after all then? But I saw you felled to the ground by their blows.”
Morar Gopal grinned cunningly.
“I threw myself down as soon as I saw that further resistance was useless. And, because I was bleeding from a wound in the head, they thought, I suppose, that they had finished me. Directly afterwards the Cossacks came, and in front of their horses, which would otherwise have trampled upon me, I quickly scrambled to my feet.”
“You have great presence of mind! But where did you get this fine suit of clothes?”
“I ran back to the hotel—through the back door, where the smoke was not so stifling—because I thought that sahib would perhaps have taken refuge there. I did not find sahib, but I found these clothes, and thought it better to put them on than to leave them to burn.”