The pranks which fortune had played them in the past might have warned them that this idyllic existence could not continue. But the fickle jade gave them no portent. Little did they realize that stern times were come again when one evening, whilst strolling ashore on a high bank and idly watching the Rajputs watering the horses, a man, black as a negro, but dressed in semi-European costume, suddenly appeared from a clump of trees crowning the promontory carved from the land by a bend of the stream at that point.
Half running, half staggering, he made towards them. As he came nearer, they perceived that he was in desperate plight. His garments were blood-stained; his gait and aspect told of abject fear; his eyes glistened like those of a hunted fawn; and, sinister token, his hands were weighted with heavy gyves of a fashion usually intended for the legs of prisoners.
“Gad!” cried Roger, staring at the apparition, “this chuck minds me of that image of Satan who greeted us on board Sir Thomas Roe’s ship. Yet, an he be the devil himself, some one hath bound him!”
The poor wretch reached them, fell panting at their feet, and gasped in Portuguese:—
“Save me! Save me, for the love of God, if ye are Christians!”
Their long voyage with Captain Garcia had taught them sufficient of the lingua franca of the high seas at that period to understand his frantic appeal. Walter stooped and patted his shoulder encouragingly. He found it hard to arrange a sentence in the man’s language, but he managed to say:—
“Have no fear. We are English.”
Then it occurred to him that one who wandered in such fashion through the wilds of India must surely know Hindustani, so he continued:—
“There are none here to harm you. Why are you chained? Of whom are you so afraid?”