By evening the next day the expected relief came. The news was true: the English besieged Coimbatoor, but with indifferent success; it was said that the Sultaun was out, and victorious even to the gates of Madras; the men were exulting over the discomfiture of the English.
‘Darest thou now attempt it?’ asked Ahmed that evening; ‘the news of thy people is bad.’
‘I will, should I perish in the attempt.’
‘Then I will lead thee out to-morrow, on pretence of taking thee with me to hunt. I have already said thou shouldst have recreation, and they have agreed to allow it. Enough now; but gird up thy loins tightly and be ready, for we shall have far to go, and to tarry by the way is death.’
The morrow dawned,—a cloudy and damp day; the mighty mists lay still in the hollows and ravines, obscuring everything. Ahmed was in despair. ‘Through those clouds,’ he said, ‘we can never penetrate, but should be lost among the precipices.’ Long before noon, however, the wind arose, and stirring the vast volumes of cloud from their repose, caused them to boil up from the abysses around them, and gradually to melt into air.
‘Come!’ said Ahmed to Herbert, whose heart bounded, and his eye sparkled, as he heard the summons,—‘Come, the men are about to return; we will see them a little way, and then turn on ourselves. Come! they are departing.’
He obeyed eagerly, and soon the Fort was left behind; and the narrow neck which connects the place to the main body of the chain—an awful precipice on each hand—was passed in safety. Soon they plunged deeper and deeper into the woods by a narrow path, descending till they reached one branch of the Baraudee, which, foaming and dashing amidst rocks, brawled on its way to the plain. Here they divided; the party ascending the green slope before them, and Herbert and his companion turning up the stream, apparently in search of game.
‘Lie down! lie down!’ cried Ahmed; ‘Shookur Alla! they are gone, and there is yet day enough for us. Ere evening we must be on the edge of the range, and the morrow will see us far below it. Canst thou bear fatigue?’
‘Any: look at me—I am stronger than thou art.’
The man regarded him earnestly, and read full well in the clear eye and open brow, ruddy cheek, and firmly knit frame, a defiance of danger. ‘I fear not for thee,’ he said; ‘Alla Akbar! the victory will be ours.’