After all this, having heard through Kit that Grace wanted nothing, the rajah and Bâl Narîn gave themselves up to the rest which they needed so sorely. The hours of the day rolled on. The sun rose high in the heavens, and a deep noontide silence, unbroken by the noises that at dead of night and early morning make the jungle terrible, brooded over the camp. Everyone slept but the two or three who remained on watch to keep the camp-fires burning.
It was in the midst of this silence that the English girl came slowly to herself. Up to this she had been in a dream. All she had distinctly realised was that she might rest—that the strain, which had tried her to the utmost limit of endurance, was over. Now, as she opened her eyes and, by the light that stole in through the canvas walls and closed chicks, saw the curtains of rose and amber, and the pretty camp-furniture, and the fresh garments, and the bowls of clear water, she began dimly to understand that this was not a dream, such as those that had visited her in her wanderings, but a reality. The gates of the dear old life—the life of safety, and love, and reverence—were opening to her once more. It was the horror she and Kit had lived through that was the dream. This was true.
For the first few moments her mind was too weak to be able to take in anything more than this: she was with her own people: she was travelling back into the past: some day, if God was gracious to her, she might see her mother and her sisters again: she might give up her darling Kit to his friends. Then, gradually, as her mind grew stronger, the events of the night, and of the days that had preceded it, shaped themselves before her.
They had been on their way to Nepaul. The good Rungya, who had rescued them one night from a horde of brutal villagers, had promised to take them thither, and place them under the protection of the minister, Jung Bahadoor. They had crossed the plains and entered one of the great sâal-forests of the Terai together. Then their cart broke down, and the animals sickened, and word came to them that a party of fugitive sepoys, who had taken up robbery as a profession, were haunting the great highway. So they turned aside, walking painfully on foot through the jungle, till they reached the Aswalia village. They had scarcely left it before Kit sickened with the fever. They carried him on between them, hoping to reach opener ground, where they might rest, when Rungya bethought him of the clearing into which they turned. A holy man, a Brahmin, who had passed through his life's different stages, and who was preparing himself in solitude and meditation for his eternal rest, lived there once. Rungya had visited him when his own life was lusty within him, and had kissed his feet reverently as a spiritual teacher. It could not be that the holy man was alive still; but his hut, which even the savage tribes of the jungle would respect, might be standing, and it, for a few days, would afford them shelter. Before they reached it Kit began to mend; but Rungya was stricken down. For two days Grace tended him as if she had been his daughter. On the third day he died; and then began that awful struggle between the heroic girl and the wild things of the wilderness, which had nearly reached its limit when Bâl Narîn found her. How long it lasted she could not tell—neither could Kit. When it began they had water and rice, and faggots for firing; when it ended their little stock was exhausted. She dared not leave the hut so much as to cut a stick of wood or fill her brass lota with water at the pool. It was like a horrible siege. The wild things without; she and her dead and dying within.
Slowly and painfully her mind travelled on. She remembered the determined attitude of the three great birds, and her own wild tempest of passion. She remembered vividly the ping of the shikari's bullet, and the fall of her enemies, and his friendly address. After that came a terror which she only dimly recalled, and which was followed by a blank—a peaceful falling away into forgetfulness.
That she had been taken from her dangerous position, and that she had heard Kit laughing and talking beside her was all she knew for certain.
The effort of thinking was great, and she fell into another brief sleep. When she awoke the day had begun to decline, and the camp was astir. Grace was stronger. Her mind worked fitfully. She was like one who is in search of something, and who has a clue which makes him believe that he will not be long in ignorance.
Suddenly, like a flash of light in midwinter darkness, there rose before her a scene out of the past—a little room, with bare mud walls and costly furniture: in its midst an Englishwoman, dressed in Oriental robes, and lovely as a vision, with soft eyes and dimpled cheeks, and a little voice like rippling waves on a pebbly shore. She—Grace—is standing before her. Her hands are bound; her face is stained; her garments are dirty and ragged. How vividly she feels the contrast between them! The lady in Oriental robes feels it too. She laughs—not brutally, as one who exults over a fallen enemy; but with gushing gladness like a child. 'Dearest Grace!' she says, 'this is shocking! What has come to you; and where, in the name of Heaven, is your rajah?' There is no answer. Grace cannot speak. The little rippling voice goes on: 'I think he is here, dear; but we cannot let him see you. You are so beautiful. You would turn his brain.' Silence again, and then: 'Won't you speak to me, you serious young person? Am I too frivolous for your taste? Well! but never mind. I mean to give you your liberty, now at once! Such fun! While Tom is in the fort expecting to see you! A friend of your father's, one of his favourite Soubahdars, will take care of you, and no doubt you will reach the English lines in safety'—and then there rises before her suddenly the wicked face with its sinister smile——
In a moment—in less than a moment—it sprang before her. She had no force to go further. There was something to be remembered still; something horrible; something that she would have to think out and tell before she had peace. But this for the moment was enough. It was the cry of her heart, the strong rapture of conviction, which, through all the shame and agony of those awful moments, had been present with her, that she remembered now.
'Tom is looking for us! Tom will find us!'