I lay, going over it all, for a long while, and at last came to the despairing conclusion that there was only one way out of the difficulty, for, in my position, I doubted my powers of holding out—only one way, and that was to escape.
This idea roused me for a few minutes, but I felt despondent again very soon, as I recalled all that he had said about the white man being driven from the land; and I asked myself, as I thought of escaping, “Where to?”
Hope came directly after, and I knew enough of the eastern character to say that these people exaggerated and talked in flowery language; and why should not the rajah, Ny Deen, be acting in the same way?
“It isn’t true,” I said half aloud. “He thinks it is, or wishes it may be; but England will not give up like that. She is too strong, and has too much at stake. He cannot tell. For aught he knows, poor Brace may be a few miles away with our brave lads ready to knock his palace about his ears, and make him prisoner in turn.”
I was just thinking that I should not like him to be made prisoner in turn, for I knew that it meant death, and I was beginning to plan how I should set about making my escape as soon as I felt sufficiently strong, when the heat and my weakness combined to send me off into a heavy sleep, one of the many that I indulged in during those days, not from idleness, for I suppose it was natural while my nerves and muscles were slowly building themselves up once more.
Chapter Thirty Five.
I worried and fretted a great deal about that proposal of the rajah’s, but I firmly declared that it was quite impossible, however tempting to my vanity. How could I become officer over a set of cowardly, mutinous, murderous scoundrels, even if I had been set free to undertake the task; and in my most bitter times I told myself that I would far rather turn the guns upon such a crew than teach them to work them.
I fully expected the rajah to come to me the next day, but he did not, and a week had gone by, during which time, although I was growing stronger, it was not so fast as it would have been had I felt free.