“Then that is where he has been making for,” muttered my father. “And I not to know that it was so near.”
It was all plain enough now. Knowing from spies that Nussoor was weakly guarded, and having lost his own city, Ny Deen was hurrying on to seize and entrench himself in another; one which would form a centre where his adherents might flee.
Just then I caught my father’s eyes, and saw in them a terrible look of agony, which made me think of the horrors which had been perpetrated at these places where the mutineers had gained the upper hand.
It had been horrible enough in the past; but now the rajah’s men were smarting from a sharp defeat. And I felt that they would make fierce reprisals on the hard-pressed garrison, all of whom would certainly be put to the sword.
Chapter Fifty Two.
In the eagerness of pursuit but small heed had been paid to the rajah’s course, and hence it was that my father, who knew little of this side of the city, had been so taken by surprise as to its being so near. And now, when every pulse was throbbing with agony, and one wish only was in his breast, he was forced to call a halt, and wait for three or four hours till the heat of the day was past, and the men had rested and refreshed their horses by a huge tank covered with lotus, and whose cool dark waters were evidently deep.
He had kept on for a long time, but the halt was forced upon him by the terrible heat. Men were staggering in the ranks, one poor fellow dropped from his horse, and he unwillingly gave the word as we reached the tank where the men threw themselves down, while others schemed all kinds of contrivances to keep off the scorching heat. “We must rest for a few hours,” said my father.
“It would be like courting defeat to throw the poor fellows against the rajah’s mob utterly exhausted by a twelve-miles’ walk through this fearful sun.”