The men with him had had no time for thought. From the moment the Khan had died at Pertâbgurh till they drew rein on the eminence over the camp, they had ridden for life. But the worst was now evident; and what they had hoped to find, was gone. The conviction that all their companions,—those whom they had loved in life, were dead, at once fell upon their hearts; and Bulwunt Rao, and many another rough veteran, burst into passionate weeping.
Fazil appeared calm, but it was the calm of desperation and of misery. "Why do you weep, friends?" he said. "They are all dead; why should we live? Death is better than dishonour! Come and see—Bismilla!"—and he turned his horse's head in the direction of the tents.
None thought of the risk. "Bismilla!" shouted the men, as, with teeth hard set for a last struggle in life, they rode a mad race to their old camp. Near it they passed many a familiar face lying upturned to the sun; and, hewing their way through a crowd of plunderers which were upon the area that had been covered by the Khan's tents, Fazil saw that their walls were torn down, and that no one remained; and in the bed of the rivulet which, lying low, screened them from observation, they drew rein. In his misery Fazil would have dismounted, and again sought death on foot, but Bulwunt Rao saw the intention, and prevented it, as he had done before.
"No, no, Meah," he said roughly; "you are our master now; and as the gods have enabled me to save you once to-day, so we will all try again. If they you sought have been taken, they are in honourable safety with the Rajah: if they are dead, there is no help but in submission to God's will."
A shout from several of the men caused Fazil to look round. He saw some persons running towards the party who had emerged from the thick jungle on the other side of the stream. They were grooms who had hidden themselves.
One of them clasped Fazil's knees. "They are safe," he cried; "Meah, they are gone this way with the hunchback and Ashruf, who would not let us follow lest we should be seen. They went down the river; and see! here are their tracks. Come!"
What need to speak more now? The new interest absorbed all other considerations. Several of the grooms were good trackers, and the hoof-marks of the two ponies could not be mistaken. They knew them well.
Late in the afternoon—often bewildered in deep silent forests, often thrown out, often despairing of success, often passing hard rocky ground where Fazil could see no tracks whatever, but where Bulwunt Rao and the trackers held their way with confidence, a small group of people were discovered, from a knoll where the trackers stood for a time uncertain, sitting near a large banian tree, on the bank of a mountain stream.