“I tell you I won’t go,” cried Lady Haigh. “Take the Miss Sahib on, and I will go back alone.”
“It must not be, Highness. The Sahib gave me a charge, and I swore to carry it out at the risk of my own life. ‘Guard the Mem Sahib and the Miss Sahib,’ he said; and I will do it. Be pleased to mount, Highness,” as she still hesitated.
“Sir Dugald would tell you to come, Elma,” urged Penelope. “If we could do anything, I would say go back at once; but we don’t even know exactly where he is, and delay now will sacrifice the men’s lives as well as ours.”
Lady Haigh looked round desperately, but found no remedy. Reluctantly she allowed herself to be helped into the saddle, and the ponies started off at once. For some time the grooms had found it difficult to hold them, for they were turning their heads uneasily towards the west, snuffing the air, and pricking their ears as though to listen for sounds. Now they needed no urging to fly along the strip of sward between the forest and the jheel; and it was with difficulty that their riders pulled up sufficiently to allow Murtiza Khan to get in front when the end of the swamp was reached, and a way had to be found through the jungle. The trooper, on his heavier horse, rode first, crashing through the underwood which had overgrown the almost invisible track, then came the two ladies, and the grooms panted behind, holding on to the ponies’ tails when the forest was sufficiently open to allow of a canter. From time to time Murtiza Khan looked back to urge his charges to greater speed, and on all sides the voices of the forest proclaimed the imminence of the danger. Flights of birds hovered distressfully over the riders’ heads, unwilling to leave their homes, but taking the eastward course at last; and through the undergrowth could be seen the timid heads of deer, all seeking safety in the same direction. When a more open space was reached the scene was very curious, for antelopes, wild pig, and jungle-rats, regardless alike of the presence of human beings and of each other, were all rushing eastwards, driven by the same panic. One of the grooms even shrieked to Murtiza Khan that he saw a tiger, but the trooper dismissed the information contemptuously. The tiger would have enough to do to save himself, and would not pause in his flight to attack his companions in misfortune.
By this time there was no mistaking the smoke-clouds which travelled in advance of the fire, and brought with them the smell of burning wood and a confusion of sounds. The roar of the advancing flames, the crackling of branches, with an occasional crash when a large tree fell, filled the air with noise. The dry jungle burned like tinder, so that a solid wall of fire seemed to be sweeping over it. Underfoot were the dry weeds and sedges and jungle-grass, then a tangled mass of brushwood, above which reared themselves the taller trees, poplar or mimosa or acacia, all of them parched from root to topmost twig, an easy prey. Presently one of the grooms jerked out an inquiry whether it would not be better to abandon the ponies and climb trees, but the trooper flung back a contemptuous negative.
“There were three Sahibs did that,” he said, “and when the trees were burnt through at the root, they fell down into the fire. Stay and be roasted if ye will, sons of swine. The Memsahibs and I will go on.”
They went on, the roar of the flames coming nearer and nearer, the hot breath of the fire on their necks, the crash of falling trees sounding so close at hand that they bent forward involuntarily to escape being crushed, the frenzied pack of wild creatures running beside and among the horses, forgetting the lesser fear in the greater. Suddenly in front of them loomed up a bare hillside, steep like a wall. Murtiza Khan gave a shout.
“To the left! to the left!” he cried. “We cannot climb up here.”
They turned the horses, noticing now that the stream of wild animals had already divided, part going to the left and part to the right. One side of their faces was scorched by the hot air; a sudden leap, as it seemed, of the flames seized a tamarisk standing in their very path. Murtiza Khan caught the ladies’ bridles and dragged the ponies past it, then lashed them on furiously. The fire was running along the ground, licking up the parched grasses. He forced the ponies through it, then pulled them sharply to the right. A barren nullah faced them, with roughly sloping sides, bleak and dry, but it was salvation. On those naked rocks there was no food for the flames. Murtiza Khan was off his horse in a moment, and seizing Lady Haigh’s bridle, led her pony up the steep slope to a bare ledge. His own horse followed him like a dog, and one of the grooms summoned up sufficient presence of mind, under the influence of the trooper’s angry shout, to lead up Penelope’s pony. They spread a horsecloth on the ground, and Lady Haigh and Penelope dropped thankfully out of their saddles. They were trembling from head to foot, their hair and habits singed, but they were safe. On a barren hillside, without food or water, in a desolate region, but safe.
For some time they could do nothing but sit helplessly where they were, watching with dull eyes what seemed the persistent efforts of the fire to reach them. Tongues of flame shot out of the burning mass and licked the bare hillside, then sank back thwarted, only to make a further attempt to pursue the fugitives and drive them from their refuge. The fire was no longer inanimate; it was a sentient and malign creature, determined that its prey should not escape. Its efforts ceased at last for lack of fuel, and the castaways on the ledge were able to think of other things. Murtiza Khan began to improvise a sling with a strip torn from his turban, and Lady Haigh, wondering what he could intend to aim at, saw that a little higher up the nullah one of the forest antelopes had taken refuge on a ledge similar to their own. She turned on the trooper angrily—