He was silent.
“Do you hear me, Dost?” I said indignantly.
He still made no reply, and feeling that he was repentant for having made so base a proposal, I went on whispering.
“It is impossible, Dost,” I said. “You are a good, brave fellow, but you do not understand these things as an English officer would. If I gave my word to the rajah, I should be obliged to keep it, and it would be a disgrace. I might have a grand position in the rajah’s army, but I should be degraded from my own, and be a traitor in training men to fight against our flag. No; I cannot promise the rajah, and I shall have to refuse him again. The next thing will be that he is fiercely angry, and I shall be imprisoned—if he spares my life,” I said sadly. “You will have a harder task to set me at liberty then. Better wait till my horse comes, and then we can both make a rush for liberty, and try and find out the captain. If the horse comes to-morrow, shall we try and escape at night?”
He did not answer.
“Dost! Shall we try and escape to-morrow night?”
There was no answer, and I stretched out my hand to touch him as a curious suspicion flashed through me.
I touched carpet, cushion, the coverlid. That was all, and hurriedly creeping to the canvas opening, I found that it hung loose, so that a man could easily pass through.
While I had been trying to teach my faithful follower the value of an English gentleman’s word, he had glided silently out of the tent, leaving me to wonder at his skill, and to fasten open the canvas wall, so as to make it seem as if I had done it for ventilation. But I could not do that till morning.
To have opened it now was to invite some savage beast of the forest to enter therein, so I left it as it was, and returned to my couch to wonder when it was that Dost had gone.