“I will spare your life on one condition, Akhab Khan,” he said. “Go ashore and learn what has taken place at the Magazine. Return here, alone, within five minutes. Mark you, I say ‘alone.’ If I see more than one who comes I shall shoot.”
“Huzoor, I shall not betray you.”
“Go, then.”
He drew the man through the water until his feet touched the steps. Climbing up unsteadily, Akhab Khan disappeared in the gloom. Then they waited in silence. The heavy breath of the bazaar was pungent in their nostrils, and, for a few seconds, they listened to the trooper’s retreating footsteps. Frank leaped ashore and pushed the boat off, while Mayne held her by jamming the leeward oar into the mud. It was best to make sure.
They did not speak. Their ears were strained as their tumultuous thoughts. At last, some one came, a man, and his firm tread of boot-shod feet betokened a soldier. It was the rebel who had become their scout.
“Sahib,” said he, “it is even as I told you. Cawnpore is lost to you.”
“And you, Akhab Khan, do you go or stay?”
There was another moment of tense silence.
“Would you have me draw sword against the men of my own faith?” was the despairing answer.
“It would not be for the first time,” said Malcolm coldly. “But I could never trust thee again. Yet hast thou chosen wrongly, Akhab Khan. When thy day of reckoning comes, may it be remembered in thy favor that thou didst turn most unwillingly against thy masters!”