Surajah related the story of their capture and escape, of their making their way through the fort, and the subsequent pursuit, and their defence of the ruined hut. Annie listened almost breathlessly.
"How I should like to have been with you," she said, when he finished. "At least, I think I should have liked it. I should have been dreadfully in the way, but I could have sat down in the hut and loaded the guns, while you were both fighting. You could have shown me how to do it. How brave of you both to have fought fifty or sixty men!"
"It was not so very brave," Surajah said. "We knew we should be killed, if they took us. There is nothing brave in doing your best, when you know that. But it was not so much the fighting as arranging things, and he did all that, and I only carried out his orders. He always seemed to know exactly what was best to be done, and it was entirely his doing, our getting through the fort, and taking to the hut, and making the loopholes, and blocking up the windows; just as it was his doing, entirely, that we killed that tiger. Whatever he says is sure to be right, and when he tells me to do a thing I do it directly, for I trust him entirely, and there is no need for me to think at all. If he had told me to go up to the sultan and shoot him, in the middle of his officers, I should have done it, though they would have cut me in pieces a minute afterwards."
"I will go away again, now," Annie said, getting up. "He told me to keep on walking about, and he would not like it if he were to wake up and find me sitting here."
And she got up and strolled away again. By the time she returned, Surajah had lain down to sleep, and Ibrahim was on watch. Annie was, by this time, tired enough to be ready for sleep again, and, wrapping herself in a rug, she lay down at a short distance from the others.
It was two o'clock when she awoke, and she sprang to her feet as she saw Dick and Surajah standing by the fire, talking.
"I was going to wake you soon," Dick said, as she joined them, "for we must have another meal before we start. I hope you feel all the better, after your walk and sleep?"
"Ever so much better. I scarcely feel stiff at all, and shall be ready to ride, as soon as you like. How do you feel, Dick?"
"Oh, I am all right, Annie. I was all right before, though I did feel I wanted a sleep badly; and you see I have been having a long one, for I only woke up ten minutes ago. I own, though, that I should like a good wash. I don't suppose I can look dirty through this stain, but I certainly feel so."
"There is a pool," she said, "a few hundred yards away there, on the right. I found it the second time I went away, and I did enjoy a wash."