Murad Afzul was in high glee, for which he had good reason. The Tarletons and Haslam he had released, conditionally on the promise of payment of a good round sum of rupees. True, the promise was so far on paper only, but curiously enough Murad Afzul, robber and general freebooter as he was himself, entertained a high opinion of the promises of the Sahibs—Feringhi infidels as they were; besides, there was just this amount of additional security, that did they repudiate their promise in this instance, why then, they had better go away and dwell right at the further end of India, and that at a day’s notice, even if they did not put the sea between them and him, for any closer proximity would certainly prove fatal to their health. As it was, the terms were satisfactory all round, for all observation had gone to convince that shrewd marauder that though it might be safe sport flaying and burning such of his Asiatic fellow-subjects who should fall into his hands, it did not pay to extend such operations to the Sahibs. They would stand robbery, but at the murder of themselves they drew the line. So a bundobust was entered into, and for what was, under the circumstances, a moderate ransom, the British captives were allowed to return to Mazaran, and they, reckoning that the Government would pay, deemed themselves mighty lucky in getting off so cheap. But Murad Afzul could afford to be moderate just then, for he was standing in for a stroke of business beside which the gains already secured were as a fleabite, and this was the capture of Herbert Raynier, and the reward offered by the Nawab for that feat.
Incidentally Murad Afzul had other kine to milk—which in their way would give a good, rich, profitable yield. The wily freebooter had issued orders that two men should be exempted from the slaughter which had taken place of the camp servants, and these two were Raynier’s chuprassis. He knew his way about, did Murad Afzul, whereupon he argued that if any man was likely to be the possessor of a considerable hoard of ill-gotten gains, that man would be a Government chuprassi. Accordingly he named a good round sum apiece, which Sunt Singh and Kaur Singh were invited to disgorge, and on their protesting their utter inability to do so, were immediately treated to an instalment of the consequences of such refusal duly persisted in.
It is curious how, even outside the covers of a book, or off the stage, poetic justice will sometimes overtake delinquents, and that as a sheer matter of cause and effect, and now for instance, as they yelled and writhed, each with a red-hot coal bound up within his left armpit—not the right, lest they should be unable to indite the requisite document authorising payment of their ransom—it did not, of course, occur to Sunt Singh and Kaur Singh that this was indirect result of their supercilious repulse of Chand Lall from their master’s audience, because they were unaware of the nature of his errand. But it is none the less certain that had that luckless trader been able to communicate that Murad Afzul and his gang of “budmashes” were out in the district, and dacoity in full blast, Raynier would never have ventured forth thus on a practically defenceless camping expedition, nor suffered others to do so either, in which contingency the events just recorded would, so far, never have taken place.
Raynier, awaking to consciousness, stared at the opposite wall, then at the furniture, then at the window, then closed his eyes again. A confused medley was flitting through his clouded brain. He seemed to see, but as if in a far-off time, the hiding-place among the mountain tops, the rain and mist and wild storms, to feel in a dull and uneasy form of sense the oppression of some peril hanging over him, but sequence of thought refused to come. Events chased each other in wild phantasmagoria through his mind, a sense of being hurled through space, a shock of some sort, a ring of shaggy fierce countenances and the flash of uplifted tulwars. Then, of a sudden, his mind cleared. He remembered the runaway horse and how his last sense had been that of being whirled into space, wrapped in a chill mist. But Hilda? What of her? Where was she? Had she been found too. Was she here, and—where on earth was he?
He opened his eyes wide now, and stared around the room. Yes, it was a room, but a strange one. The walls were of a dull brown colour, and unpapered. The window was a tall, narrow embrasure, glazed and partly open. In the doorway was a chik of fine split bamboo, draped by faded curtains, and a lamp of strange, but very artistic, design hung from the ceiling. Where was he? And he made a movement to spring out of bed.
A figure glided to his side, a figure clad in white and wearing a turban, and a hand was laid upon his wrist.
“Do not move, Sahib. The Sahib must lie quiet. The Sahib has been ill.”
The words were spoken in Hindustani, and now Raynier answered in the same tongue,—
“I suppose I have been. But where am I, and—who are you?”