“It is evident which path the muleteers have taken,” observed Oscar, as both moonlight and torchlight showed the marks of hoofs and naked feet on the road which bore to the left.
“Wrong—go wrong; way to Tavoy lie that way!” cried the foremost Karen, who bore one of the torches, pointing towards the right.
“Are you certain of that?” asked Oscar.
Almost with one voice the Karens replied, “Mules gone wrong way—drivers know nothing—never get to Tavoy.”
Oscar felt extremely annoyed and perplexed. His wife, faint with fasting, might have to spend the whole night in the wood. Io was keeping up bravely, but her husband knew that she suffered. He was undecided as to what course to pursue: if he took the right path, he gave up hope of overtaking the mules which carried the tent and provisions; if he took the left, he and his party might be lost in the dark depths of the forest. Oscar thought of returning to Mouang; but he had already gone so far that he was unwilling to retrace his steps.
“Which course shall we take?” said Coldstream to his wife, after explaining to her the difficulty of coming to a decision.
“Let us ask God to guide us, dearest,” was the reply of Io, a reply given with a smile, though she was struggling to keep down tears.
CHAPTER XVIII.
RESCUED.
The question was decided in a startling manner. First, there was the sound of crashing of boughs, as if wild beasts were forcing their way through the thicket; then a burst of yells, which certainly came from human throats. The Karens started with alarm, put down the litters, and cried out, “Shans,” which Coldstream knew to be the name of a tribe living farther towards the north. The next minute the clearing in the wood was filled with a wild band of half-clothed Siamese, shouting and flourishing rude weapons which flashed in the moonlight. Coldstream had no time to make even an attempt at resistance. The Shans knew that the Englishman was the one of the party most likely to show fight, so they made a determined rush from all sides on the unarmed man. A heavy blow brought Oscar to the earth, and as he struggled to regain his feet a dozen dark hands seized him, and with ropes wrenched from Maha’s small litter Coldstream was tightly bound to a tree with his arms fastened behind him. The whole affair passed sorapidly that the bewildered, terrified Io had scarcely time to understand what had happened before she saw her husband a helpless prisoner, and herself in the hands of a wild, lawless band! Io’s alarm was great, but even her terror was as nothing compared to the agony of mind endured by her husband, who forgot his own danger in witnessing hers. Oscar could not even gasp forth a prayer; the fearful thought which had come to him before, that he was doomed to suffer through the wife whom he passionately loved, came on him again with agony so intense that a dagger plunged into his side would have inflicted less pain. Could Oscar’s thoughts have been clothed in words they would have been, “I refused to pluck out the right eye; and now both eyes will be torn from me, and nothing remain to a wretch but the blackness of darkness for ever.”