Tikaram was dead. His was an instance, and not a solitary one, of the devotion of which the sons of the soil were capable, both to the children under their charge, and to the men and women who in the days of their power had treated them with consistent kindness. While his co-religionists covered his face and built hastily a pyre of dead wood to consume his body, Tom went apart and, with a beating heart, undid the many foldings of the paper.
The writing within was in Grace's hand. He saw this at a glance, but the words were so faintly traced that he had great difficulty in deciphering them. He did not, in fact, make it all out at once. But for us it has been transcribed, and we are able to give it as it was written down.
'This is for Tom. I know he is looking for me. When I have an opportunity I shall throw it down, addressed to him in his Indian name, and some one, perhaps hoping for reward, will take it to him——' A break, and then, 'I cannot write. I am watched day and night. What will the end be? I dare not even imagine. But I must not die while Kit is living.' Another short break, and then in tremulous, very minute characters, 'I am afraid of this man. There is a wicked look in his face. I think he is vindictive; but what can I have done to offend him? To-day he threatened to separate me from Kit. If he does I know what I will do. Don't fear for me, my beloved ones. My peace-bringer is still at my heart. When the occasion comes I know how to use it——' After this last entry a considerable interval must have elapsed. To those who read it afterwards it seemed as if some mental shock had passed over the poor girl, shattering her nerves. When she wrote again it was with a sort of surprise. 'I forgot about my plan—' so the next entry runs—'but did I have a plan? My mind goes from me. Everything is confused. I feel as if I had been dead, and had come to life again. Perhaps I have. But here is my darling Kit sleeping sweetly beside me in the hut where we have been resting all day. Is he dead too? Or who is dead? Everything is confused, and I cannot understand. But I think he and I are alive. What we are doing here I don't know in the least. Some one somewhere, who seemed kind, dressed us in native dresses and stained our faces, and some one else gave us a cart and a bullock, and so we go on, day after day, day after day. Kit says we are going into Nepaul, for the people there are kind to the English. The poor English! I wonder how many of them have been killed! Kit says we are English, too. I wonder if that is true. I thought I was English once. I thought I was a woman and a lady, but that must have been in another life——' Ah! how strange and pitiful it was! Spelling it out with pain and difficulty, Tom felt now and then as if his heart would break. If he could only weep as Bertie Liston had done! But he could not. His eyes were dry and hot, and a fire seemed to be burning within him, and his breath came and went in panting sobs like one in the agonies of death.
The last words were more clearly written, and the collected way in which they were put together, contrasting vividly with the incoherence of what went before, gave him a little glimmer of hope.
'I have slept, and I am better, and I remember now what I intended to do when I first began to write this. There is a good man here—a hermit or holy man, who has penetrated our disguise, and who pities us. He has heard from those who have heard it from others that fugitives have been inquired for in the villages hereabouts. He advises us, however, not to linger here. The Ghoorka army are on their march southwards, and the people are excited. But he will try that my scroll may reach those who are trying to find me. I think Tom is one. If he finds me—but I remember that he may see this. I thank him with all my heart for what he has done, for what, as I believe, he is still doing for us. To-morrow we go into the jungle. The good hermit will guide us. We go towards the mountains, and we hope to succeed in crossing them. If this is found let those who find it look for us in the jungle or on the hills. There may yet be time to save Kit. He is the noblest and bravest little fellow that ever lived.'
That was all. The suspicion which had led Tikaram first, and later the young rajah, to search for them in the jungle was confirmed, but there was no further clue. These might be the last words of the heroic girl before darkness swallowed her up. And yet it was with a strange rapture—a sense of exultation such as he had not known since he fleshed his maiden sword on the slaughterers of women and children—that Tom pressed the dear missive to his heart. She was hoping for his help, counting on him as her defender. And since she had lived through so much, was it not possible that still, even at this eleventh hour, he might find her? He dared not think of it. It was too good, too joyful. Yet for a few instants the warm blood welled to his heart, and his pulses beat a triumphant measure, and it seemed as if all—all he had suffered, his toil, his depression, his despair, his horror, was as nothing. Found! Brought back in safety; cared for with so deep a tenderness that the terrors of the way she had gone, and the misery and humiliation of her capture, would be forgotten. His heart swelled. The love it contained made it fit to break. 'It is too much, too much,' he said to himself. 'I cannot bear it.'
And then he remembered suddenly that his task was not done, nay, that the hardest part of it was to come, and he tried to be stern, and to brace up his energies to do what lay before him.
They had halted in a small open glade. The pyre on which the body of Tikaram had been placed was already kindled, and the smoke was rising into the still air and floating away in tremulous waves, like heat made visible. The birds of prey that had been hovering over the litter were sailing away sullenly, uttering harsh cries. The men of both cavalcades, taking advantage of the rest, had tethered their horses and, gathered together in little groups, were lighting small fires to cook their evening meal. On all sides they were hemmed in by the jungle, and, as the shades of evening gathered, strange noises as of shrieks and sobbings echoed and re-echoed through the dense and matted underwood.
Tom had gone apart to read the paper. When the strong determination to act at once came upon him, he called up the chief of his little escort and Hoosanee. The latter, at his request, fetched two or three of those who had been with Tikaram. When they were all together Tom addressed them in Hindoostani. He told them as much as he could of the paper that had fallen into his hands, expressed it as his conviction that those he sought were still wandering in the jungle, and asked their advice.
Not one of them, not even Hoosanee, but gave it as his opinion that the fugitives were long since dead. If they had crossed the Terai, which was unlikely, they could never have crossed the mountains. The Ghoorkas were for giving up the search in despair. Hoosanee said nothing; his eyes followed those of his master. Tom asked temperately if, in their opinion, there was any fear to be entertained of their encountering detachments of the rebels here. They believed not. Later there would, no doubt, be many fugitives from the revolted troops, but there had not as yet been any English victory of sufficient importance to cause the rebels to despair. If they fled from one place they would join their comrades in another. But jungle-fever was a worse enemy than revolted sepoys.