“She’d better not come to again just yet,” Tarleton said. “We’d better get her into a tent, if they’ll let us.”
Permission to do this was granted gruffly, but two of their captors were ordered to enter with them lest they should possess themselves of weapons, nor was this precaution superfluous, for they had fixed upon Haslam’s tent as being the nearest, and Haslam’s revolver lay upon his charpoy. At the sight he stifled a deep and muttered curse, as the Gularzai pounced greedily upon it. He had reason to curse deeper still as they ordered him to at once deliver up any arms and ammunition he might have in his possession. Inwardly he groaned again as he saw his beautiful shot gun and Mannlicher rifle in the eager grip of the hooked claws of these copper-hued brigands. Then he was ordered outside again.
Murad Afzul had not dismounted from his fine camel, and from the altitude of his seat—for he had ridden into the centre of the camp—was directing operations. Several of his followers were ransacking the tents, trundling out their contents; and soon trunks and despatch boxes, bags and tins of provisions, articles of clothing and kitchen utensils were piled together in promiscuous heaps. But what delighted the warrior soul of the freebooter was the sight of four or five good, up-to-date rifles and a brace of revolvers. The shotguns, too, he contemplated with satisfaction, but the rifles appealed to him most, and these he caused to be handed up to him one after the other as he sat on his camel, and each he would bring to his shoulder, sighting it at some object far or near, away over the plain. The weapons of his followers were good, but they were only Martinis. But these—magazine and repeating guns, spick and span, and of first-rate workmanship! Ya, Mahomed, what a find!
Now he beckoned Haslam to him. The Forest Officer, standing there under this arch-brigand looking down upon him from the height of his towering camel, felt that humiliation was indeed his lot to-day.
“So, jungle wallah,” began Murad Afzul, speaking in Hindustani, and sneeringly withal, “so, jungle wallah, I told you I was not accustomed to ask the same question twice; yet this time I will give you yet another chance, and ask it the third time. Where is Raynier?”
“That I can’t tell, for I don’t know,” answered Haslam, with perfect truth.
The chief bent over, and whispered instructions to some of his followers on the off-side of his camel. These came round, and laying a hand on Haslam’s shoulder ordered him to go with them. Resistance was absolutely useless, and Haslam was marched away. They were taking him in the direction of the Levy Sowars’ camp, he noticed, of course to execute him there. His time had come, he concluded. Rapidly, as he walked to his doom, his past life flashed through his recollection. He had been a careless sort of chap, he supposed, like others, no better—he would have shrunk from the imputation of making any other claim—but, he hoped, no worse. He had not troubled his head much about what lay beyond the grave, nor had he ever shrunk from death when duty or dangerous sport had brought him within gazing distance of it. Perhaps, if all that was taught of what came after it were true, or even a portion, why, he was surrendering his life rather than give information which should place the lives of others in danger, and it might be taken into consideration. But of mercy at the hands of yon ruthless freebooter he had no hope. At any rate, he would meet a swift death—they would shoot or behead him, and they might have done him to death by slow torture. He thought of his wife and young family away in England. Would they miss him much, and, more important still, would the Government do anything for them over and above the rather moderate pension which they would draw from the fund to which he had subscribed throughout his term of service? It was not probable. Government was seldom liberal. Then his thoughts were broken in upon. They had reached the tents of the Levy Sowars, and into one of these he was ordered.
Wonderingly he obeyed. What did it mean? Were they not going to put him to death after all, for it occurred to him they would hardly have brought him into a tent for such a purpose? But he was ordered to seat himself, and remain perfectly still—and informed that any movement he might make, or sound that he should utter, would be his last. And then, immediately outside the canvas which screened him from the outer world, he heard the loud sharp, double report of a rifle.
One other heard it too, and that one was Tarleton. To his mind it suggested but one solution—possible rescue to wit—acting upon which idea he did what a man of his bull-headed temperament would be expected to do, but which, had his idea been correct, was the very worst possible thing he could have done. He came to the tent door, and looked eagerly and anxiously out.
Murad Afzul still sat there on his great camel, his countenance as cold and impassive as the graceful folds of his snowy turban, while upon his followers a strange hush had fallen. At sight of the Feringhi it was broken—broken by muttered curses and threats. But—where was Haslam?