Rujub, the Juggler

by G. A. Henty

“What do you think, my dear? He is more disgusted with himself than ever.”

“Not about that nervousness, surely,” Isobel said, “after all he has done and the way he has risked his life? Surely that cannot be troubling him?”

“It is, my dear; not so much on the general as on a particular ground. He insists that by jumping out of the boat when that fire began, he has done for himself altogether.”

“But what could he have done, Doctor?”

“That's what I ask him, my dear. He insists that he ought to either have seized you and jumped overboard with you, in which case you would both probably have been killed, as I pointed out to him, or else stayed quietly with you by your side, in which case, as I also pointed out to him, you would have had the satisfaction of seeing him murdered. He could not deny that this would have been so, but that in no way alters his opinion of his own conduct. I also ventured to point out to him that if he had been killed, you would at this moment be either in the power of that villainous Nana, or be with hundreds of others in that ghastly well at Cawnpore. I also observed to him that I, who do not regard myself as a coward, also jumped overboard from your boat, and that Wilson, who is certainly a plucky young fellow, and a number of others, jumped over from the other boat; but I might as well have talked to a post.”

Isobel sat for some time silent, her fingers playing nervously with each other.

“Of course it seems foolish of him to think of it so strongly, but I don't think it is unnatural he should feel as he does.”

“May I ask why?” the Doctor said sarcastically.

“I mean, Doctor, it would be foolish of other people, but I don't think it is foolish of him. Of course he could have done no good staying in the boat—he would have simply thrown away his life; and yet I think, I feel sure, that there are many men who would have thrown away their lives in such a case. Even at that moment of terror I felt a pang, when, without a word, he sprang overboard. I thought of it many times that long night, in spite of my grief for my uncle and the others, and my horror of being a prisoner in the hands of the Sepoys. I did not blame him, because I knew how he must have felt, and that it was done in a moment of panic. I was not so sorry for myself as for him, for I knew that if he escaped, the thought of that moment would be terrible for him. I need not say that in my mind the feeling that he should not have left me so has been wiped out a thousand times by what he did afterwards, by the risk he ran for me, and the infinite service he rendered me by saving me from a fate worse than death. But I can enter into his feelings. Most men would have jumped over just as he did, and would never have blamed themselves even if they had at once started away down the country to save their own lives, much less if they had stopped to save mine as he has done.

“But who can wonder that he is more sensitive than others? Did he not hear from you that I said that a coward was contemptible? Did not all the men except you and my uncle turn their backs upon him and treat him with contempt, in spite of his effort to meet his death by standing up on the roof? Think how awfully he must have suffered, and then, when it seemed that his intervention, which saved our lives, had to some extent won him back the esteem of the men around him, that he should so fail again, as he considers, and that with me beside him. No wonder that he takes the view he does, and that he refuses to consider that even the devotion and courage he afterwards showed can redeem what he considers is a disgrace. You always said that he was brave, Doctor, and I believe now there is no braver man living; but that makes it so much the worse for him. A coward would be more than satisfied with himself for what he did afterwards, and would regard it as having completely wiped out any failing, while he magnifies the failing, such as it was, and places but small weight on what he afterwards did. I like him all the better for it. I know the fault, if fault it was, and I thought it so at the time, was one for which he was not responsible, and yet I like him all the better that he feels it so deeply.”