Tynan found nothing to say in reply. He remembered the many injuries he fancied he had received at Russell’s hands—the thrashing of a week or two ago, the contempt with which he had been treated in the fort when his junior took the command from him and threatened him in front of the men. Why not pay him out? After all, what did it matter now? It could be put right if necessary when he should have reached a place of safety. The first consideration was to save his own life.
“We shall slip away to-morrow,” said the subadar. “I will go and make all arrangements now. Remember that my life also is sacrificed if we are discovered.”
So saying the double traitor took his leave. Outside the door he chuckled grimly and proceeded to tear up the “promise to pay” the five thousand rupees. For a very good reason he had no intention of claiming that, but the other papers he carefully preserved. After the boy had been murdered, he could easily make up some story and fabricate some evidence to show that they had been followed and attacked, and that he escaped by the skin of his teeth, more alive than dead, and never saw the ensign again. Pir Baksh meant to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds so long as the British held their own.
But most of all he meant to kill Harry Tynan.
Left to himself Ensign Tynan sat down upon the string bed, and leant forward to think it all over, elbows on knees and his chin resting in the palm of his right hand. As a rule he was not a very thoughtful person, but the nightmare of the past few days might well effect a change. Of habit, not of character though! Peril, suffering, and anxiety may develop the good or bad that is there already, but will hardly transform a weak character into a strong one.
For a long time the boy sat motionless, wondering what Pir Baksh really meant. Was he genuine? Did he mean to save him? Tynan did not trust the man, yet he assured himself again and again that the Mohammedan must be intending to try, or why should he have demanded the promise of a reward—a document useless unless he was actually saved. And what about that other paper? Ted Russell would never have signed it, conscience whispered.
“I only wish Russell was here instead of me,” he muttered, and gave the bedstead a vicious kick.
“But he’s dead,” came a reminder from his better self, and there followed a recollection of the statement added by the subadar, the lie that robbed the dead of the credit of a glorious deed.
“Everything seems to go wrong with me,” he sullenly muttered. “I’ve no luck like other people. Never mind, it’s not of much consequence. What I’ve got to think about is how to get out of this hole. I believe after all that that black brute means to murder me. Well, I’ll try to sleep on it.”
He lay down, and an idea occurred to him. Rising to his feet he knelt down in the attitude of prayer. Hardly ever since he had left home for school had he so much as made believe to pray for help and guidance, but now he wondered he had not thought of it before. Had he lived two or three hundred years ago he would have vowed invaluable offerings to the shrine of his patron saint, and, the danger over, would as promptly have forgotten to fulfil the vow.