"True is it, O Kâreem, that the Feringhi infidel cannot die in peace without his sharâb," remarked Haiyât virtuously. But he did not fail with the others to taste all the contents of the cupboard, even to a bottle of Pain-killer which had belonged to the bâbu. Meanwhile Dick, lying helpless and bound, felt a fierce surge of hope and despair as he remembered that behind those open doors lay something which could put an end to treachery. Five minutes with his field-instrument in the open, and, let what would come afterwards, he would have done his work. The thought gave Dick an idea which, if anything, increased the hopelessness of his position, for the only result of his offer to work the wires on condition of his life being saved, was to drive Afzul, who saw his dread of Dick's getting his hands on the instrument in danger of being over-ruled, into settling the question, once and for all, by severing the connection with a hatchet.
"I know him better than that," he said; "he would sit and fool us until he had given warning. Let him lie there; if he has sense, he will sleep."
There was something so significant in his tone that Dick felt wisdom lay in pretending to follow the advice. He strained his ears for every whispered word of the gang as they crouched round the fire, and gathered enough to convince him that the sudden change of plan at head-quarters had endangered some deep-laid scheme of revenge, and that Afzul Khân, believing Dick had gone on to the camp, had suggested a false telegram in order to lure the regiment into the open. A frantic rage and hate for the man who had suggested such a devilish prostitution of what constituted Dick's joy and pride roused every fibre of the lad's being. Lecoq, that greatest of examples to prisoners, declares that given time, pluck, and a cold chisel, the man who remains a captive is a fool. But how about the cold chisel? Dick's eyes, craftily searching about under cover of the failing fire-light, saw many things which might be useful, but all out of reach.
"I am cold," he said boldly; "bring me a rug or move me out of the draught."
They did both, in quick recognition of his spirit, and, with a laugh and an oath to the effect that the dead man would be a warm bed-fellow, dragged him beside the wretched bâbu and threw a sheepskin rug over both. Dick's faint hope of some carpenter's tools in the far corner fled utterly: but his heart leaped up again as he remembered that his cowardly subordinate had always gone about armed with revolvers and bowie-knives. Rifling a dead man's pockets with your hands tied behind your back is slow work, but the rug covered a multitude of movements. Half an hour afterwards Dick's feet were free, and with the knife held fast between his heels he was breaking his back in obstinate determination of some time and somehow severing the rope upon his wrists. Some time and somehow--it seemed hours; yet when he managed at last with bleeding hands to draw the watch from his pocket he found it was barely two o'clock. Hitherto his one thought had been freedom; now he turned his mind towards escape. There was still plenty of time for him to reach the camp ere dawn found the regiment on the move; but the risks he might have to run on the way decided him, first of all, to try and secure his field-instrument from the cupboard. He lay still for a long time wondering what to do next, furtively watching Afzul Khân as he busied himself over the fire, while the others dozed preparatory to the work before them. Having possessed himself also of the dead bâbu's revolver, Dick felt mightily inclined to risk all by a steady shot at Afzul, and immediate flight. But the remembrance of those sentries on the downward road prevented him from relying altogether on his speed of foot. Yet Dick knew his man too well to build anything on the chance of either wine or weariness causing Afzul to relax his watch. It had come to be a stand-up fight between these two, a state of affairs which never fails to develop all the resources of brain and body. Dick, keenly alive to every trivial detail, noticed first a longer interval in the replenishing of the fire, and then the fact that but a few small logs of wood remained in the pile. Thereafter, whenever Afzul's right hand withdrew fresh fuel, Dick's left under cover of the noise made free with more. The sheepskin rug had shelter for other things than a dead body and a living one.
"It burns like a fat Hindoo," muttered the Pathan, sulkily, as the last faggot went to feed the flame. "Lucky there is more in the outhouse, or those fools would freeze to death in their sleep."
Dick's heart beat like a sledge-hammer. His chance, the only chance, had come! Almost before the tall figure of the Pathan, after stooping over him to make sure that he slept, had ceased to block the doorway, Dick was at the cupboard. A minute's, surely not more than a minute's delay, and he was outside, safe and free, with the means of warning carefully tucked inside his fur coat.
Too late! Right up the only possible path came Afzul, carrying a great armful of sticks. To rush on him unprepared, tumble him backwards into a snowdrift alongside, deal him a crashing blow or two for quietness' sake and cram his pugree into his mouth, was the work of a minute; the next he was speeding down the descent with flying feet. The storm was over, and the moon riding high in the heavens shone on a white world; but already the darkness of the peaks against the eastern sky told that the dawn was not far off.
The first dip of the wires, he decided, was too close for safety, besides the drifts always lay thickest there. The next, a mile and a half down the valley, was best in every way; and as he ran, the keen joy of victory, not only against odds but against one man, came to him with the thought of Afzul Khân gagged and helpless in the snow. But he had reckoned without the cold; the chill night air which, finding its way through the open door, soon roused the sleepers by the ill-replenished fire. Haiyât, waking first, gave the alarm, and the discovery of their leader half suffocated in the snowdrift followed swiftly. Yet it was not until the latter, slowly recovering speech, gasped out a warning, that the full meaning of their prisoner's escape was brought home to them.
"After him! Shoot him down!" cried Afzul, staggering to his feet. "He can bring fire from heaven! If he touches the wires all is lost. Fool that I was not to kill him, the tiger's cub, the hero of old! Curse him, true son of Byramghor, born of the lightning!" So with wild threats, mingled with wilder words of wonder and admiration, Afzul Khân, still dazed by the blows Dick had dealt him, stumbled along in rear of the pursuit.