'You are right, most noble lady. My master, the rajah, has sent me. He has only lately come to rule over us; but already he knows the hearts of his people. He loves the English, and he would, if he could, avert these troubles. But he knows it to be impossible. The storm has broken, and it will sweep over the land and devastate it, and none can stay its course. This he bids me tell you, beseeching you to seek a refuge while you can.'
'That is easy to say,' said Grace faintly. 'But where are we to seek a refuge, and to whom is it offered? Flight was spoken of before; but we have been assured that, if we leave the station now, it will displease the men, who have again and again promised to be loyal, and so revolt would be hastened. God knows,' she went on passionately, 'that it is hard to wait. When I think of them all—my poor little cousin, who will not believe in danger, and that beautiful child, and the young men and women—it is like a burden at my heart. I can scarcely breathe. I seem to see all sorts of horrible things; and,' slowly, 'horrible things have happened already. It is no dream.'
'They have happened; they will happen again. But you, most noble lady, could escape. Could you—would you trust yourself to me?' Hoosanee spoke breathlessly.
'Alone?' said Grace, drawing back..
'No, not alone. I could arrange for the escape of two, perhaps of three.'
For a few moments Grace sat silent, with bended head, thinking; and the rajah's messenger watched her with a beating heart. He was thinking a little of himself, of the triumph it would be to enter Gumilcund as the protector and deliverer of the first of the English fugitives, of her, in particular, on whom his master's heart was set. But he thought of her too. He in his own humble way had fallen in love with the beautiful and gentle lady, whose manner to natives was so different from that practised by the generality of her countrywomen. He knew, moreover, as even his master could not, how cruel and shameless an Eastern mob could be; and the idea of her falling alive into the hands of the mutineers made him sick with horror. Hoosanee, we must remember, belonged to Gumilcund. Except during the last few months, when he had served the new rajah, who was much gentler in his manners to those depending upon him than any grandee of the East, he had never been brought into direct contact with English people. The bitter, personal hatred, compounded partly of race and religious antagonism, and partly of spite for a long series of small wrongs and humiliations—the hatred which made servants betray their masters and mistresses, and peasants gloat over the misery and degradation of Englishwomen, and villagers flog Englishmen in the presence of jeering crowds—was strange to him. But he knew that it existed, and the knowledge made him shudder for the fair woman his master loved.
Presently Grace looked up. 'We are not many,' she said. 'Would it be possible for us all to escape? The men, I believe, would be freer without us.'
'I could return for the others,' said Hoosanee, evasively.
'I think we might persuade my cousin to go, and sweet little Kit and his mother,' said Grace.
'Will my noble lady pardon me?' said Hoosanee, bending low. 'She must come first, or I must return whence I came alone.'