Such was Tom's condition that evening. As he looked round on this desolate land, given up to monstrous growths and fierce animals, with his hopes dwindling every moment, he felt a terror of his own littleness that almost maddened him. Devoured by impatience, he could do nothing. If he moved a few yards from his party he would be lost, and without Bâl Narîn he would be more helpless and hopeless than ever. The necessities of his humanity; the grossness and opacity of his senses; his weakness and his ignorance, were such that, if the dear prize for which he would willingly have laid down his life were in his grasp, he might not be able to seize it. Many men in his position would have cried out to their God. He could not. What he did actually believe was not very clear, even to himself, at that time. The strange mysticism, so fascinating to a high intelligence, that animates some of the older Oriental philosophies had become curiously blended in his mind with the cut-and-dried orthodoxy in which he had been brought up. But he knew what he did not believe, and special providences, miracles worked benevolently for favoured mortals, were amongst the things that he had renounced long ago.
So, with neither hope nor help, only a vague determination to go on until he died, he went to and fro, like a restless wild creature. When he was out of his men's sight he would clench his fists and strike out at an imaginary foe, and mutter fiercely; when he returned to them he would be as they had always seen him—quiet and stern.
An hour passed by. A sickly evening dimness was creeping over the desolate land; he fancied he could hear the animal-world of the jungle rising up to meet the night, and his impatience grew to such a pitch that he could scarcely restrain himself. Presently the camels and bullock-carts came up. He asked the coolies if they had met Bâl Narîn. They shook their heads. He had not certainly been seen on the road. This made the young rajah exceedingly uneasy; but the Ghoorkas, whom he consulted, did not share in his fear. Bâl Narîn, they said, knew what he was about. Most likely he did not care to go any farther that night, and he had laid down where he was, so as not to be ordered on. If he did not join them in the evening, they would certainly see him at daybreak. With this Tom tried to be satisfied, for it was quite evident that he could do nothing. The men would not stir without Bâl Narîn, and for him to do so alone would be as useless as it was dangerous.
They made him up his usual evening meal, a mess of rice and fried vegetables; but he could not eat a morsel. Mounting his horse, he rode slowly back to the point where he had seen Bâl Narîn last. Here he whistled, cried out, tried to ride through the kutcha-grass; but was driven back by the venomous tribes of insects that had come out with the dying down of the day; then realising that these spasmodic efforts were perfectly useless, he returned to the road, and paced back sadly and slowly, seeing no signs of Bâl Narîn anywhere.
The camp was illuminated by gleaming brands set high on poles, and the little cooking-fires were smouldering in its midst. It made a spot of glowing red in the spectral darkness; where everything but it was being slowly obliterated. Tom would have preferred the darkness; but he knew very well that in the jungle he was surrounded with nameless dangers. If he did not wish to give his body for a meal to the beasts of prey that were ranging it, he must keep in the neighbourhood of his companions. So, trying to still his fiery impatience, he lay down where they had spread his canvas sheets, drew a gauze net over his face, and lighted a pastile to keep the cloud of insects at a distance.
I have spoken of Tom's gift of sleeping at will. Even in this terrible emergency it did not desert him. He had learned a few lessons, however, in his life of adventure, and it would not have been so easy now as on his first expedition to steal a march upon him.
The sleep, light and brief as it was, refreshed and invigorated him. When, having indulged in it for about two hours, he sprang up and looked round, he found that the feverish madness of excitement which, if given place to, would have unfitted him for work that needed decision and readiness, had gone. His brain was clear, and his limbs had lost their languor.
In the encampment everything was as it had been. The fires were smouldering and the torches flamed. Two Ghoorkas were on guard. The rest slept, while the camel-drivers, syces, and coolies sat doubled up together, their knees touching their noses, near the beasts of burden which were tethered in the centre of the encampment.
It was dead night; but the darkness was not such as it had been earlier, for a three-quarter moon had come up from her bed of snows behind awful Himâla and was shedding over the desolate land a pale light, which, defective as it was, Tom hailed with pleasure.
'You have often been my friend, Lady Moon,' he said, as he gazed up into the vapour-veiled sky, 'and though you don't shine as you do in the plains, I think you will give me light enough to see what I am doing.'