“Yes, my lord; thy servant said so, and it is right. The great doctor spoke to me, and said that you wanted a change from here.”
“Oh no,” I cried.
“But the great doctor said so, my lord. He knows. My lord was nearly dead when he was brought here, but the good medicine brought him back to life, and now he is nearly strong. This place is good, and it was made ready for my lord, but it is very lonely, and the wild beasts are always about the tents at night.”
Salaman said no more, but walked away. He had already said too much.
I was in agony, and could think no more, for it appeared as if my chance had been thrown away. Only a few hours back, and Dost was talking to me, there, where my meal was spread, and I, his master, had let him go, instead of ordering him to take me away with him.
I bitterly reproached myself for what I looked upon as my weakness in giving way, though I know now that I did quite right, for of course I could not foresee so sudden a change. I had expected it, and we had discussed its probability, but I had hoped that there would be time for my rescue first.
“Once inside the city, Brace will not have much chance of getting me away,” I said to myself despondently; and then, as I sat thinking over my unhappy lot, and of the coming interview with the rajah, there was only one way in which I felt that I could help myself, and that was to seem worse instead of better when my captor came.
But I threw that idea aside directly; it was too contemptible.
“I must act like an English officer,” I said. “It would be despicable to sham, and he would see through it all at once.”
Like many another one in such a position, I gave up thinking at last, and prepared myself for the inevitable.