He shook it: some of the powdery contents fell to the floor.
Hot now with excitement, he unrolled the paper with nervous fingers, and saw on it, in small characters written, as it seemed, with the fire-blackened end of a sharp stick, the words, "Give me my bone."
CHAPTER XIV
HEAD COOK
Mackenzie and Jackson, it will be remembered, had been removed from the Temple before Forrester, at the close of the scene with the Old Man. They were taken back to their separate cells, and locked in for the rest of the day. Jackson's nerves were shaken all to pieces; Mackenzie, whose robuster physique was less affected, was in desperate anxiety as to Forrester's fate. He spent a wretched day, a still more wretched night. By turning his back on the monster he managed to fend off the worst effects of the baleful eye; but the consciousness that it was there behind him with its unwinking glare intensified his distress. When morning came, and he was escorted again to the foot of the rock stairway, he welcomed the respite afforded by the prospect of a day in the open air, and hoped against hope that the Old Man had relented, and would allow Forrester to join him.
Night brings counsel, and Mackenzie was a long-headed Scot. He had come to the decision that it would be sheer folly, after what had happened, to repeat his refusal to work on the plantations. The depressing influence of solitude and the mysterious light was no doubt relied on by the Old Man to bring his prisoners to a proper docility. Well, Mackenzie would assume that virtue, if he had it not, and he would advise his friends, if they came, to fall in with his own plan: to work with apparent resignation, though always alert to seize on any opportunity of escape that might offer itself.
When he was handed a spade, therefore, by the priest who appeared to act as taskmaster, he accepted it, and set to work on the plot of ground assigned to him. But he took care not to ply his implement too energetically, stopping every now and again to mop his brow with his sleeve and to heave the sigh appropriate to a forced labourer.
As the day wore on, and neither of his friends appeared, he feared the worst. Jackson's absence might easily be accounted for by a nervous breakdown natural to a man of his temperament; but Forrester would have come if he had been at liberty to do so, and it seemed only too likely that he had either been demolished by the Eye, or that he was still confined to his cell, or possibly condemned to some other punishment whose nature Mackenzie could not guess. At the close of the day he sought to relieve his suspense by addressing a question to the priest, but received only a stony stare. He could not tell whether the man understood him or not.
Several days passed in the same dreary, hopeless fashion. Mackenzie kept away from the old zamindar, who, though his daughter had been restored to him, was visibly broken down by a haunting dread of calamities yet to come. He exchanged only a few words now and again with Sher Jang, fearing, in the one case as in the other, that closer intercourse with them might tend to their harm. But one morning he was as much delighted as surprised to see Jackson appear at the head of the stairway. He had been supported in the climb, practically pushed up, by one of the priests. The taming process was evidently regarded as successful. From that time the two friends remained constantly on the plateau, being given a small hut among the cluster nearest to the dwellings of the priests. It contained no furniture; their only bedding was a blanket apiece.
In the fresh air, and under the bracing influence of Mackenzie's companionship, Jackson, in some degree, recovered tone. The two friends worked side by side. No check was placed on their association; it was evidently assumed that they were resigned to their lot, or at any rate too much dominated by their fears to give trouble. After the first day together they never spoke of Forrester: in their hearts they believed that they would see him no more.