“Well, we’d better start soon, and not go too far either, for I shouldn’t wonder if this evening turned out as bad as last,” said Upward, rising from table. “Khola—Call Bhallu Khan.”
The bearer replied that he was in front of the tent.
“So this is the man whose sharp hearing was the saving of my life?” said Campian, as the head forester extended his salaam to him—And he put out his hand.
The forester, a middle-aged Pathân of the Kakar tribe, was a fine specimen of his race. He looked picturesque enough in his white loose garments, his head crowned with the “Kulla,” or conical cap, round which was wound a snowy turban. He had eyes and teeth which a woman might have envied, and as he grasped the hand extended to him, the expression of his face was pleasing and attractive in the extreme.
“By Jove, Upward, this man is as different a type to the ruffians who came for me last night as the proverbial chalk and cheese simile,” remarked Campian, as they started for the shooting place. “They were hook-nosed scoundrels with long hair and the expression of the devil, whereas this chap looks as if he couldn’t hurt a fly. He has an awfully good face.”
“Oh, he has. Still, with Mohamedans you never can be absolutely certain. Any question of fanaticism or semi-religious war, and they’re all alike. We’ve had too many instances of that.”
“Oh, come now, Ernest. You mustn’t class good old Bhallu Khan with that sort of native,” struck in his wife. “If there was any sort of rising I believe he’d stand by us with his life.”
“I believe so too. Still, as I say, with Mohamedans you can never tell. Look, Campian, this is where we found you last night. Here’s where you were lying, and here’s where the water came up to during the night.”
Campian looked somewhat grave as he contemplated the jagged edge of sticks and straws which demarcated the water-line, and remembered that awful advancing wave bellowing down upon him.
“Yes—It was a near thing,” he said—“a very near thing.”