'Missy! Missy!' cried the poor creature. 'Get up; come away. They have seen us.'
'Tom said he'd come,' murmured the child.
The poor woman seized the child in her arms, but before she could run, a hand was laid on her garments, and a voice, which, paralysed as she was with terror, she recognised as the voice of a friend, called her by her name.
In the next moment, Aglaia had leapt from her arms, and was lying in the close embrace of her friend. He could not speak. Man as he was, his eyes were full of tears and his voice was choked with sobs. Holding the child to his breast, he guided the frightened ayah gently over the broken ground. Then, as he recovered, he began to murmur broken words of thanksgiving and endearment. 'My little darling! My treasure! You are safe! They may tear me limb from limb, but they shall not hurt you. Oh! thank God, thank God! that I have found you.'
As for the child, she said not a word. She clung to his neck. And so, coming back softly they found Subdul and the horses, and set off together—the child in Tom's arms, and the ayah riding behind Subdul—for the village where they had friends.
They went slowly, keeping close under the shelter of trees and houses. No one molested them. Fortunately for themselves they were in the outskirts of the city and cantonments, and throughout that dreadful night the revolted sepoys and the Ranee's body-guard were too busy setting fire to the Europeans' dwellings, and raking the ashes for treasure, to pay any heed to stragglers. In a short time they were out in the open country, and now they rode on more securely.
Aglaia was fast asleep in Tom's arms. The ayah had regained her powers of speech, and she poured out her history of all that had happened. The sahibs had gone into the Fort. She would not take the child in, for she knew what the soldiers were and she did not trust them. She flew by a secret way to the garden, and there they hid, she feeding the child on what she could find.
Did little Missy ask for her mother? Oh! yes, again and again; but she (ayah) told the child that the Feringhees' God had taken her away to stay in Paradise with Him, and she was satisfied. They were in the garden when the English were brought in, all of them bound with cords. It had been a long and sultry day, and the little one was asleep. Sumbaten heard, she dared not look. There were cries, but they were soon over, and then the soldiers went away, and everything was still. 'Missy was dreaming of you, Sahib,' she said to Tom, 'to-day and the day before. She began to sing when she awoke, and she said you were coming. Did your God tell her?'
He did not answer, but he pressed the child closer to his heart.
Of their further journey there is no space here to tell in any detail, nor do I know much concerning its incidents. In my friend's diary it is only briefly mentioned, and he suffers from a curious confusion of ideas whenever he thinks of it. It was due, doubtless, in a great measure to the admirable arrangements which Tom and his servants had made beforehand that they were able to carry it through successfully, for in every village on the route there were those who knew the Rajah of Gumilcund, and were ready to serve him. Once he was obliged to fall back on the pass given to him by Dost Ali Khan, who, as he presently found, was becoming a power in the land. What he most dreaded was an encounter with the White Ranee, but, being careful to travel by night and along the unfrequented routes, all of which were well-known to Subdul, he succeeded in avoiding her. He heard, however, that she continued to haunt the district, and that her armed train was constantly recruited by the soldiers whom Dost Ali Khan seduced.