That day passed as the others had gone. Everything about me was beautiful, and I was treated like a prince, but the word “renegade” was always in my mind’s eye, and I went to my rest at last as despondent as ever, after another attempt to decipher the writing, but all in vain.
It was a very hot night, and for a long time I could not sleep; but at last I was dozing lightly, when I woke with a start to listen.
But all was still for a time. The lamp burned with its soft shaded light, and there was not a sign of anything startling, but, all the same, I had awakened suddenly, in a fright, and with an instinctive feeling that something was wrong.
All at once, from the back of the tent, there was a low, sharp hiss, and I felt that my enemies, the snakes, were about again, trying to get in, and I wondered at my folly in not insisting upon having some weapon at hand, though I knew it was doubtful whether I should have been so favoured.
I lay listening, and then rose up quickly, meaning to rush to the tent opening, and call for whoever was on the watch, when a soft voice whispered—“Hist, sahib!”
“Ah!” I ejaculated, with my heart beating as if I had been running.
“Hist! Friends near.”
I was on my way to the side of the tent whence the voice came, when I heard hurried steps, and had just time to throw myself back on my couch, as the tent door was thrown open and Salaman appeared.
“The sahib called,” he said.
I was nearly speechless with emotion, which I dared not show, and I knew that my duty was to keep the man there, and engage him in conversation so as to give my nocturnal visitor a chance of escape. Mastering myself as well as I could, I said in a fretful, angry way—