"It was a decidedly unpleasant experience and one I don't want to try again. My throat is parched; I must have swallowed tons of sand. And look at the state I'm in!"
He was powdered thick with it, clothes, hair, eyebrows, grey with it. It had caked on his face damp with perspiration.
"Thanks to your jacket I've escaped pretty well, although I was almost suffocated," she said. "Well, now that it is over surely someone will come to look for us."
"Then we had better get up on our horses and move out into the open. We'll be more visible," said Wargrave.
Yet he felt a strange reluctance to quit the spot; for the thought came to him that their unpleasant experience in it would henceforth be a link between them. A few hours before he had not known of this woman's existence! and now he had held her to his breast and tried to protect her against the forces of Nature. The same idea seemed born in her mind at the same time; for, when he had brushed the dust off her saddle and lifted her on to it, she turned to look with interest at the spot as they rode away from it.
They had not long to wait out in the open before they saw three or four riders spread over the desert apparently looking for them, so they cantered towards them. As soon as they were seen by the search party a sowar galloped to meet them and, saluting, told them that the Maharajah and the rest had taken refuge from the storm in a village a couple of miles away. Then from the kamarband, or broad cloth encircling his waist like a sash, he produced two bottles of soda-water which he opened and gave to them. The liquid was warm, but nevertheless was acceptable to their parched throats.
They followed their guide at a gallop and soon were being welcomed by the rest of the party in a small village of low mud huts. A couple of kneeling camels, bubbling, squealing and viciously trying to bite everyone within reach, were being unloaded by some of the Maharajah's servants. Other attendants were spreading a white cloth on the ground by a well under a couple of tall palm-trees and laying on it an excellent cold lunch for the Europeans, with bottles of champagne standing in silver pails filled with ice.
As soon as his anxiety on Mrs. Norton's account was relieved by her arrival, His Highness, who as an orthodox Hindu could not eat with his guests, begged them to excuse him and, being helped with difficulty on his horse, rode slowly off, still shaken and sorely bruised by his fall. His nobles and officials accompanied him.
After lunch all went to inspect the heap of slain boars laid on the ground in the shade of a hut. Wargrave's kill had been added to it. Much to the subaltern's delight its tusk proved to be the longest and finest of all; and he was warmly congratulated by the more experienced pigstickers on his success. Shortly afterwards the beaters went into the nullah again; and a few more runs added another couple of boars to the bag. Then, after iced drinks while their saddles were being changed back on to their own horses, the Britishers mounted and started on their homeward journey.
Without quite knowing how it happened Wargrave found himself riding beside Mrs. Norton behind the rest of the party. On the way back they chatted freely and without restraint, like old friends. For the incidents of the day had served to sweep away formality between them and to give them a sense of long acquaintanceship and mutual liking. And, when the time came for Mrs. Norton to separate from the others as she reached the spot where the road to the Residency branched off, the subaltern volunteered to accompany her.