They led him passively to the brink; the Jemadar stood there already; it was a dizzy place, and Herbert’s eyes swam as he surveyed it.
‘Thou art not to die, Feringhee,’ said the Jemadar; ‘but look over. Behold what will be thy fate!’
Herbert obeyed mechanically, and the men held him fast on the very verge, or the temptation would have been strong to have ridden himself of life. He looked down: the hot and glaring sunlight fell full on the mangled remains of his comrades, which lay in a confused heap at the bottom: a hundred vultures were scrambling over each other to get at them, and the bodies were snatched to and fro by their united efforts. The Jemadar heaved a fragment of rock over, which, rebounding from the side, crashed among the brushwood and the obscene birds; they arose screaming at being disturbed, and two or three jackals skulked away through the brushwood. But Herbert saw not these; the first glance and the putrid smell which came up had sickened him, weak and excited as he was, and he fainted.
CHAPTER XXIV.
‘He has fainted, or is dead,’ cried the men who held him, to the Jemadar, who was busied in heaving over another fragment of rock. ‘He has fainted; shall we fling him over?’
‘For your lives do not!’ cried the Jemadar; ‘draw back from thence—let us see what is the matter.’
They obeyed him, and laid Herbert down softly upon the rock, while the Jemadar stood over him. His hand was powerless and cold, his face quite pale, and he looked as though he were dead.
‘He has cheated us,’ said the Jemadar to those around; ‘surely he is dead. Who prates now of the valour of the Feringhees? Even this leader among them could not look on a few dead bodies without fainting like a woman: Thooh! I spit on the kafirs: I marvel that the Sultaun so desires him to enter the service, and is at such trouble about him.’
‘He will die,’ said one of the men; ‘his hand grows colder and colder.’