A thrill of exultation ran through his veins. Yet what was there to exult over? He was alone upon the wild mountain side—unarmed, and without food—in a perfectly unknown land. Every step he took fairly bristled with peril. The wind increased in volume; the rain pattered down harder. He could not see an inch in front of him. Any moment might find him plunging from some dizzy height to dash himself into a thousand fragments and Eternity. Here again his very desperation saved him. Trusting entirely and blindly to luck, he skirted perils that would have engulfed a more careful and less desperate man. Anything rather than a repetition of his experience of that day.
On through the darkness—on ever. The howl of a wolf ranging the mountain side was now and then borne to his ears upon the wind and rain: and more than once the dislodgment of a loose stone or two, and its far away thud, after a momentary space of silence, told that he was skirting some vast height, whether of cliff or tangi—but even that failed to chill his blood. He was moving—his energies were in action. That was the great thing. He was no longer cold now. The exertion had warmed him. He felt more and more exultant.
Yet with morning light his enemies would be upon his track. Here, among their native rocks and crags, what chance had he against these persistent, untiring hillmen? The savage hatred of Umar Khan, enhanced by being deprived of a sure and certain prey, would strain every source to effect his recapture. Well, he had the long night before him, and the darkness and turbulence of the night were all in his favour.
If only he had some idea of his locality. The tidings of the outrage would have reached Shâlalai, and by now a strong military force would have been moved up to Mehriâb station to investigate the scene of the massacre, and follow up its perpetrators. But he had no idea in which direction Mehriâb station lay, or what mountain heights might have to be crossed before he could gain it.
Morning dawned. Weary eyed, haggard, exhausted with many hours of the roughest kind of walking, stumbling over boulders and stones, bruised, faint for want of food, the fugitive still held on. He was descending into a long, deep valley, whose sides were covered with juniper forest. Shelter, at any rate, its sparse growth might afford him. Ha! He knew now where he was. It was the Kachîn valley.
Yes, in the widening dawn every familiar feature was made more plain. He had come over the high kotal which he and Bhallu Khan had climbed to when stalking markhôr. There was the spur which shut out Chirria Bach, and away up yonder the forest bungalow. Could he gain the latter he could obtain food, of which he stood sorely in need, as well as arms and ammunition. Some of the servants were still there. They would have heard nothing of the tragedy on the railway line, and would be momentarily expecting the return of the household. Turning to the right he struck off straight for the house, full of renewed hope.
But that huge, practical joke entitled Life is, in its pitiless irony, fond of dashing such. He had barely travelled half a mile when a rattle of stones on the mountain side above arrested his attention. A score of turbaned figures were clambering down the rocks. Spread out in a half circle formation they were nearly upon him. There was no escape. Umar Khan and his savage freebooters were not going back on their reputation just yet. The fugitive’s long night of peril, and labour, and perseverance, had all gone for nothing. Several of the Ghazis were already pointing their rifles, and in loud, harsh tones were calling on him to halt.