The air was fœtid with the smell of chunam and the opium and common tobacco smoked by the natives of both sexes, in the hubble-bubble, or hookah, of the country.
Flora experienced an indescribable feeling of alarm, while despair seized her again. In the Palace she certainly had comfort. There was none here. Moreover, she saw that she was thoroughly in Singh’s power. In her anxiety to escape she had not thought of that; but now that the danger stared her in the face, she shrank with horror. She yearned for Zeemit. Where was she now? If she failed, everything was lost. Not that Flora doubted her. The old woman had proved her devotion in a hundred ways. But then the difficulties and dangers were so numerous. Besides, many days had elapsed since Zeemit had parted from her in the Palace garden, and during that time she might have thought that the scheme had failed, and had given up watching at the bungalow. As Moghul Singh handed his captive down from the buggy, she cast anxious glances about. But there were only darkness and silence around; nothing could be heard, nothing seen, only the dark mass of building, and the melancholy light of the lamp.
As she mounted the two or three steps that led to the verandah, and stood upon the threshold of the doorway, she tottered with the sense of horror with which she contemplated the consequences of remaining. She felt that she dare not enter, that she would sooner rush to certain death in the open city, than pass one hour beneath the roof of that tomb-like place.
“What is the matter?” the man asked sharply as he saw that she faltered.
“I am faint,” she answered. “The heat has overcome me.”
“Oh, nonsense,” was his surly reply. “Come, follow me.”
He tried to take her hand, but she held it back. She felt such an unutterable loathing for the villain that it was almost impossible to avoid showing it. The cold-blooded deed that he had been guilty of in decapitating the boy made her shudder.
It was true she had seen horrors enough during the mutiny to have hardened her senses to some extent. But this tragedy had been committed in such a diabolical manner, and before her eyes, that it sickened her; and yet she had ridden side by side with the guilty miscreant for some miles. She had had an impression, although it had not been so understood, that on the moment of her arrival she would find Zeemit Mehal waiting, and that the woman would have matured some plan that would have enabled them to effect an immediate escape. But Zeemit was not to be seen. It was an awful moment for Flora. Words would fail to depict the agony of mind and body she endured. She reproached herself for leaving the Palace. She felt that if she had been in possession of a weapon, she could without the slightest compunction have slain the villain who stood beside her. She was suffering the extreme of despair—passing through that stage when all faith even in Heaven is for the time lost. Misfortune had come upon her so suddenly, and pursued her so relentlessly since, that she mentally asked herself why she and her people should have been made the subjects of so much persecution.
Moghul Singh grew impatient when he saw that Flora did not comply with his demand and follow him.
“Why don’t you come?” he exclaimed angrily. “The time is passing quickly, and I must return to the Palace before daylight.”