It was one of these restless nights towards the middle of June. All day long he had been hard at work and almost unconscious of any special pain. It had been sultry exceedingly, the skies like molten-brass, save over the western horizon, where leaden-coloured clouds were gathering in battalions, and the touch of the earth like a thrice-heated furnace. Tom, who was so much exhausted that he thought he must sleep, visited the little Aglaia, as was his nightly custom, listened for a few moments to the prattle of her and her ayah, and then retired to his own apartment. It was in this room that the late rajah had breathed his last; on which account partly, and also for its space and coolness, and the beautiful view from its low latticed windows of the fantastic Indian garden, and the little azure blue lake, and the low green hills behind the city, Tom had chosen it for its own. When he went in that night he found it dimly lighted by heavy wax candles that stood in sconces against the wall; the water in the marble canal that intersected it and in the small fountain that sprang from a basin in a recess at its upper end murmured dreamily, and through one of the lattices there stole in the silver rays of a young moon. At first the space and silence had a soothing effect upon him. He flung off the sword which he had been carrying all day, drew his revolver out of his belt, and threw himself down, just as he was, on one of the thick padded mattresses that lay on the marble floor. But he could not sleep. The moment he laid his head down upon his pillow the torturing thoughts began again, and he was obliged at last to spring from his bed, and to court the physical weariness which might bring sleep by pacing his room rapidly. The heat was stifling, or was it the fever in his blood? He could not tell; but he thought that, with all his strange experiences, he had never felt so strange as now, and for a few moments he forgot everything, even to the horror that was continually haunting him, in watching his own sensations.
Flames! leaping flames! Every part of his body was enveloped in them. They rose above his head, filling his eyes with blood; they made the veins of his body their pathway; he saw them before him, lying in fiery pools on the marble pavement, so that his feet were rooted to the ground and he dared not stir. This for a few moments, during which he fought passionately to regain his self-possession. Then shutting his eyes, he made a dash for one of the marble lattices and laid his forehead against the hard, cold stone. It seemed to him presently that his senses were slipping away from him—that he was falling into a stupor or swoon; and he must actually have lost consciousness for a time; but how long it lasted he could not tell. A breath of cool air, soft and tremulous as the kiss of loving lips, aroused him; and, with a curious sense of refreshment at his heart, he looked out. At first he saw nothing. It was the hollow blackness of a moonless Indian night that smote upon his eyeballs. Then, gradually, he began to see dim ghostly shapes moving in slow procession across the face of the sky. He was aware too of a curious, subdued tumult, multitudinous whisperings, growing, now and then, into a low shriek or wail, and with them a rushing noise as if winged creatures innumerable were sweeping by. With a dreamy sense of relief, which was as incomprehensible to himself as everything else about him, he stood gazing and listening, and the tumult grew; shriller and more piercing were the voices of air and sky; the earth strained and groaned as if the invisible forces hidden within her bosom were struggling for freedom; a mighty wind, that swayed the pendent branches of the banyan-tree in the court below, and shook the withered pods of the acacias, till they rattled like dead men's bones, rushed through the garden.
Then, suddenly, everything went. The heavens vanished away in abysmal depths of blackness. The ghostly shapes in the middle air—the dim outline of the trees, the dusty whiteness of the earth—all these were gone. The monsoon had broken, and, in all the world, there was nothing else.
How they fall—those torrents, those sheets of water, rushing through the air, making the sun-baked earth hiss as they touch it—falling, with dull, delicious splash into the lake!
Tom has pressed his face close to the lattice, and put out his hands to catch the drops of water that are running from the eaves of his house.
'Now God grant there are no fugitives abroad to-night!' he says to himself.
The words have scarcely escaped his lips before a sound, more definite than those of the tempest, strikes upon his ear. Some one down below is knocking for admission. In the next instant, just as he is about to go out and see who it is, he hears a brief parley, followed by the opening and shutting of the door that leads to his private apartment. There follow a few moments of suspense, and then Ganesh, the chuprassie, who is one of the most trusted of his servants, stands before him. Ganesh carries a torch, by whose light Tom sees that there is a strange glitter in his eyes.
'What is it?' he says. 'Who came in just now?'
'Excellency,' answers Ganesh bowing low, 'Subdul Khan, his Honour's syce, has come back.'