“True. If I can depend upon you, the plan might work.”
“If you can! Why can you not? Have I not proved myself faithful?”
“Yes.”
“Then why these suspicions? They are unjust.”
“Because there is so much danger in the plan that extreme caution is needed.”
“I do not blame you for being cautious; but since you have been to so much trouble, and risked so much to gain this prize, it is worth some effort to try and retain her.”
“That is so,” said Jewan, for he saw that the plan was quite possible, and the chances of once more getting Flora into his power was too strong a temptation to be resisted. “I think you reason well,” he continued; “and if you are cautious, we may succeed. At any rate, let us make the attempt. If you are true to me, I will pay you five hundred rupees the moment this woman is once more mine; but if you play me false, your life shall be forfeited.”
“You need not threaten. I have served you well; I will serve you better. Get me assistance, so that my hurt may be attended to; and, when I have regained a little strength, I start for Delhi. Time shall prove how well I will serve you.”
This was said significantly, but Jewan failed to catch its meaning.
The old woman felt that she was leading him into a pitfall, and she could scarcely restrain the pleasure she experienced. Her love for Flora was unmistakable, and it was a fact strangely at variance with the demoniacal-like hatred exhibited by the majority of the natives, that, during the mutiny, the truest friends to the whites were the ayahs or nurses. It is certain that many of these women—and there was one in every house in India, where there were children or ladies—paid for their fidelity with their lives.