[CHAPTER XXXIII]
CONTAINING EXTRACTS FROM THE RAJAH'S DIARY, WITH HOOSANEE'S RECOLLECTIONS
The rajah, as it will have already been guessed, had discovered a secret way of leaving his palace. Starting from a well, or small chamber underneath his sleeping room, it led out through a long subterranean gallery to another well, most secretly contrived beyond the principal gate of the city. Ganesh, who had discovered it by accident, had made use of it to open communications with Dost Ah Khan. Believing that the rajah would accept the rebel chief's invitation to a conference, he had set everything in readiness for a departure this way. With regard to Tom's adventures on the perilous journey thus initiated I have been fortunate in securing narratives both by himself and his attendants. I have said that, in Gumilcund, he had given up recording the events of his daily life in his diary. No sooner had he left the State, regaining, as it seemed to him then, his old identity, than the necessity, which in some natures is so strong, of completing his life by throwing its incidents into a mental picture, reasserted itself. He wrote hurriedly day after day, on the tablets he carried with him, and as they, with the rest of his diary, have been confided to my keeping, I am able to give some extracts from them here.
'July 1857.—The die is cast. For better or for worse, and I cannot now decide which it is. I have cast off the shackles which, for these many days, have bound me. I am thinking, acting, living, in my own person. And the strange part of it is that, with everything to make me uneasy and miserable, I am happier far and more tranquil than I have been for weeks. That is why I am writing now.
'It is deep night, and we are halting—Hoosanee and I—in the midst of a forest, while Ganesh, our guide, goes on to make arrangements for our admission into the fort, which is held, as I hear, by Dost Ali Khan. I have his safe-conduct, presented to me at Delhi, on my person. Ganesh tells me that it has already saved me from death once, that had I not had it about me, the soldier Abdul—my gaoler on the White Ranee's march—would certainly have killed me. Possibly it may save me again. In any case I can do no other than I have done. Whatever the issue may be, I must await it with fortitude. Grace, I believe, is in that fort. I will leave it with her, or I vow before God that I will not leave it at all. If she is dead, which I cannot and will not believe, then I will return to Gumilcund, and give myself up to my people, letting them do what they will with me.
'The night passes slowly. Ganesh is long away. I wonder if he really means well by us, or if this is merely a trap laid out for our destruction. It may be. Chunder Singh was sure of it. And he knows the native character much better than I do; but as I cannot draw back now, and would not if I could, I must not dream of failure. There are other things to think of. In these quiet moments, solitary except for Hoosanee, who crouches at my feet—the litter in which I have been travelling at rest, and my little reading-lamp making a tent of light in the dark forest—I have time and opportunity for thought. In Gumilcund I could not think. That sense, half oppressive, half exultant—ah! has it not been a great illusion? I feel so free, so natural now: my life has become so simple—one thought in my mind—one will animating me—one object at my heart—that I cannot but believe I have been tormenting myself in vain. And, indeed, can it not be easily explained? This idea of a double personality was the clever stroke of policy of a clever and subtle brain that sought to project itself into the future. And no doubt, having allowed myself to fall into it, I have been able to do more for the people of Gumilcund and for my own people also than would otherwise have been possible. So far it has been well. But it cannot surely last for ever. It began—stay—did it begin here? Did it even begin on board the "Patagonia"? Before ever I met Chunder Singh—the very night after I received news of my inheritance, I had my first vision. The next was when I opened the papers that were so mysteriously lost. If then the others resulted from my intercourse with Chunder Singh, what was the origin of them? Some solution of the mystery may come to me by-and-by; it seems to me now as if there was only one way in which that question could be answered.
'But I hear footsteps in the wood; I must put my pen down.'
The following entries are undated; but I know that they belong to this period.