“By de wheeles ob Juggannaut coachee,” cried the shikaree, who had been listening, and understood the figurative dialogue; “dat be da goodee plan. Dese stork go back Calcutt—surely dey go back. Dey carry letter to Feringhee Sahibs—Sahibs dey know we here in prison—dey come d’liva we vey dey affer get de letter—ha! ha! ha!” Then delivering himself of a series of shrill ejaculations, the Hindoo sprang up from the stone upon which he had been sitting, and danced around the hut, as if he had suddenly taken leave of his senses!
However imperfectly spoken, the words of Ossaroo had disclosed the whole plan, as conceived by the plant-hunter himself.
It had vaguely defined itself in Karl’s mind, on first seeing the storks above him in the air; but when the lustre of metal flashed before his eyes, and he perceived that yellow band encircling the shank of the bird, the scheme became more definite and plausible.
When at length the storks were taken captive, and Karl deciphered the inscription—by which they were identified as old acquaintances of the R.B.G.—he no longer doubted that Providence was in the plot; and that these winged messengers had been sent, as it were, from Heaven itself, to deliver him and his companions from that prison in which they had so long been pining.
Chapter Sixty Two.
Conclusion.
The deliverance came at length; though it was not immediate. Several months more, of that lonely and monotonous life, were our adventurers called upon to endure.
They had to wait for the return of the rainy season; when the rivers that traverse the great plains of Hindostan became brimful of flood—bearing upon their turbid bosoms that luxuriance, not of life, but of death, which attracts the crane and the stork once more to seek subsistence upon their banks. Then the great adjutant returns from his summer tour to the north—winging his way southward over the lofty summits of Imaus. Then, too, did Karl and his comrades believe that their adjutants would be guided by a like instinct, and go back to the R.B.G.—the Royal Botanic Garden of Calcutta.