“Yes, quite safe, with two syces to care for him; the horse of their rajah’s friend. What can I get you? Ask for anything. I am very rich, and it shall be yours.”
“You can only give me one thing,” I cried. “No; two things.”
“The first, then?” he said, smiling.
“News of my troop, of Captain Brace, and our men; of the officers of the foot regiment. Tell me,” I cried excitedly, “how did the fight end?”
“How could it end?” he replied, with a smile full of pride. “What could that poor handful of men do against my thousands?”
“Defeated?” I cried excitedly.
“Yes; they were defeated; they fled.”
My countenance fell, and there must have been a look of despair in my eyes, which he read, for he said more quietly—
“Captain Brace is a brave man, and he did everything he could; but he had to flee—and you were left in my hands a prisoner,” he added, with a smile.
“He had to flee,” I said to myself; and that means that he had escaped uninjured from a desperate encounter. There was something consoling in that; and I wanted to ask a score of questions about Haynes and the infantry officers, but I could not. For one thing, I felt that it would be like writing a long account of a list of disasters; for another, I was not sure that I could trust an enemy’s account of the engagement. So I remained silent, and the rajah asked me a few questions about my symptoms, and whether there was anything he could get for me.